第11章 THE NOONING TREE.(1)

The giant elm stood in the centre of the squire's fair green meadows, and was known to all the country round about as the "Bean ellum."

The other trees had seemingly retired to a respectful distance, as if they were not worthy of closer intimacy; and so it stood alone, king of the meadow, monarch of the village.

It shot from the ground for a space, straight, strong, and superb, and then bust into nine splendid branches, each a tree in itself, all growing symmetrically from the parent trunk, and casting a grateful shadow under which all the inhabitants of the tiny village might have gathered.

It was not alone its size, its beauty, its symmetry, its density of foliage, that made it the glory of the neighborhood, but the low grown of its branches and the extra-ordinary breadth of its shade.

Passers-by from the adjacent towns were wont to hitch their teams by the wayside, crawl through the stump fence and walk across the fields, for a nearer view of its magnificence.

One man, indeed, was known to drive by the tree every day during the summer, and lift his hat to it, respectfully, each time he passed; but he was a poet and his intellect was not greatly esteemed in the village.

The elm was almost as beautiful in one season as in another.

In the spring it rose from moist fields and mellow ploughed ground, its tiny brown leaf buds bursting with pride at the thought of the loveliness coiled up inside. In summer it stood in the midst of a waving garden of buttercups and whiteweed, a towering mass of verdant leafage, a shelter from the sun and a refuge from the storm; a cool, splendid, hospitable dome, under which the weary farmer might fling himself, and gaze upward as into the heights and depths of an emerald heaven.

As for the birds, they made it a fashionable summer resort, the most commodious and attractive in the whole country; with no limit to the accommodations for those of a gregarious turn of mind, liking the advantages of select society combined with country air.

In the autumn it held its own; for when the other elms changed their green to duller tints, the nooning tree put on a gown of yellow, and stood out against the far background of sombre pine woods a brilliant mass of gold and brown.

In winter, when there was no longer dun of upturned sod, nor waving daisy gardens, nor ruddy autumn grasses, it rose above the dazzling snow crust, lifting its bare, shapely branches in sober elegance and dignity, and seeming to say, "Do not pity me; I have been, and, please God, I shall be!"

Whenever the weather was sufficiently mild, it was used as a "nooning" tree by all the men at work in the surrounding fields; but it was in haying time that it became the favorite lunching and "bangeing" place for Squire Bean's hands and those of Miss Vilda Cummins, who owned the adjoining farm.

The men congregated under the spreading branches at twelve o' the clock, and spent the noon hour there, eating and "swapping" stories, as they were doing to-day.

Each had a tin pail, and each consumed a quantity of "flour food" that kept the housewives busy at the cook stove from morning till night.

A glance at Pitt Packard's luncheon, for instance, might suffice as an illustration, for, as Jabe Slocum said, "Pitt took after both his parents; one et a good deal, 'n' the other a good while."

His pail contained four doughnuts, a quarter section of pie, six buttermilk biscuits, six ginger cookies, a baked cup custard, and a quart of cold coffee. This quantity was a trifle unusual, but every man in the group was lined throughout with pie, cemented with buttermilk bread, and riveted with doughnuts.

Jabe Slocum and Brad Gibson lay extended slouchingly, their cowhide boots turned up to the sky; Dave Milliken, Steve Webster, and the others leaned back against the tree-trunk, smoking clay pipes, or hugging their knees and chewing blades of grass reflectively.

One man sat apart from the rest, gloomily puffing rings of smoke into the air. After a while he lay down in the grass with his head buried in his hat, sleeping to all appearances, while the others talked and laughed; for he had no stories, though he put in an absent-minded word or two when he was directly addressed. This was the man from Tennessee, Matt Henderson, dubbed "Dixie" for short. He was a giant fellow,-- a "great gormin' critter," Samantha Ann Milliken called him; but if he had held up his head and straightened his broad shoulders, he would have been thought a man of splendid presence.

He seemed a being from another sphere instead of from another section of the country. It was not alone the olive tint of the skin, the mass of wavy dark hair tossed back from a high forehead, the sombre eyes, and the sad mouth,--a mouth that had never grown into laughing curves through telling Yankee jokes,--it was not these that gave him what the boys called a "kind of a downcasted look."

The man from Tennessee had something more than a melancholy temperament; he had, or physiognomy was a lie, a sorrow tugging at his heart.

"I'm goin' to doze a spell," drawled Jabe Slocum, pulling his straw hat over his eyes. "I've got to renew my strength like the eagle's, 'f I'm goin' to walk to the circus this afternoon.

Wake me up, boys, when you think I'd ought to sling that scythe some more, for if I hev it on my mind I can't git a wink o' sleep."

This was apparently a witticism; at any rate, it elicited roars of laughter.

"It's one of Jabe's useless days; he takes 'em from his great-aunt Lyddy," said David Milliken.

"You jest dry up, Dave. Ef it took me as long to git to workin' as it did you to git a wife, I bate this hay wouldn't git mowed down to crack o' doom. Gorry! ain't this a tree!

I tell you, the sun 'n' the airth, the dew 'n' the showers, 'n' the Lord God o' creation jest took holt 'n' worked together on this tree, 'n' no mistake!"

"You're right, Jabe." (This from Steve Webster, who was absently cutting a _D_ in the bark. He was always cutting _D_'s these days.)

"This ellum can't be beat in the State o' Maine, nor no other state.