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"Lime, linden and basswood," said Clara "three names to remember for one tree. But didn't you say, Miss Harson, that it's always called basswood in our country?" "Often, but not always. The name linden is quite common with us, and it will be well for you to remember that it is also called lime, so that when you go to Europe you will know what is meant by lime and linden."
"Jest so! He's treed! That's a Coon, all right!" and Caleb led straight for the place. The Hound was barking and leaping against a big Basswood, and Caleb's comment was: "Hm, never knowed a Coon to do any other way always gets up the highest and tarnalest tree to climb in the hull bush. Now who's the best climber here?" "Yan is," volunteered Sam. "Kin ye do it, Yan?" "I'll try."
Robert Robin would rather live in their own tall basswood tree than any other place in the whole wide world. Each Fall, when the weather grew cold, and the winds were chilly, and the leaves of the big basswood turned brown, and then blew away, Robert Robin and his whole family flew south, but each Spring when the weather grew warmer, Robert Robin and Mrs.
He does wonderful work with that strong bill. One decaying basswood found recently was eighteen inches in diameter and the woodpeckers had drilled big holes clear through it. The pile of their chips at the base would have filled a bushel basket. By the time you have reached the spring the woods are full of life and sound, and the spring itself adds to the winter music.
We climbed down into the gully, however, and, with many an apprehensive glance aloft where the top of the basswood hung threateningly over our heads, approached the foot of the hemlock and began to chop it. The bees immediately descended about our heads. Soon one of them stung old Hughy on the ear. We had to beat a retreat down the gully and wait for the enraged insects to go back into their nest.
Even the big basswood tree seemed to wait for Robert Robin, and seemed to miss him when he was away. All Winter the beautiful tree waved his bare branches in the air, and when the frosty snow sparkled on the meadows, and the stars were shining in the winter sky, the chilling wind swept through the woods, and the branches of the tall basswood made a sound like a sigh.
Though in felling the tree I had disturbed them considerably, none of them had come down to sting us, but now they filled the air. Apparently the swarm was a large one. Old Hughy was a good deal disappointed. "I snum, that 'ere's a bad mess," he grumbled. At last he concluded that we should have to fell the hemlock. Judging from the ticklish way the basswood hung on it, the task looked dangerous.
In this way a forest growth of oak, elm, beech, butternut, hemlock, basswood, and birch is cleared off to give room for saplings of soft maple, cottonwood, and brittle willow. It is felt that the inexpensiveness of leaving the forest trees standing would derogate from the dignity that should invest an article which is intended to serve a decorative and honorific end.
Beyond the meadows, aflame with autumn wild-flowers, beyond the cultivated clearings, rose a forest of walnut, oak, basswood, birch and poplar trees, seared with age, of immense height and girth, festooned with wild honeysuckle and other creepers.
When Gerald Pox, and Melancthon Coon, and Jim Crow, and Wellington Woodchuck, and Billy Rabbit, and Major Partridge saw Robert Robin flying through the bare woods, or heard him singing his clear notes from the top of his big basswood tree, they would say to themselves, "Robert Robin is back from the south, and Spring will soon be here."
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