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The polished slabs were laid before him on the table in rows, as he had arranged them to show to a customer: wine-coloured mahogany, and golden satinwood; ebony black as jet; tulip-wood mottled like fine tortoiseshell; coromandel wood, striped black and white like the coat of a civet cat; ghostly basswood, shining white on dead white; woods of clouded grain, and woods of shining grain, grain that showed like the slanting, splintered lines of hewn stone, like moss, like the veins of flowers, the fringes of birds' feathers, the striping and dappling of beasts; woods of exquisite grain where the life of the tree drew its own image in its own heart; woods whose surface was tender to the touch like a fine tissue; and sweet-smelling sandalwood and camphor-wood and cedar.
'I see yer makin' troughs for the sap, observed Zack. 'What on airth, you ain't never hewin' 'em from basswood? 'Why not? ''Cos 'twill leak every single drop. Yer troughs must be white pine or black ash; an' as ye'll want to fix fifty or sixty on 'em at all events, that half-dozen ain't much of a loss.
Mister and Mrs. Robert Robin lived in the big basswood tree which stood at the corner of Mister Tom Squirrel's woods. Their nest was made of sticks, and grass, and mud, and was so well hidden in the largest fork of the tree that if you had been standing near the foot of the big basswood, you could not have seen Mister Robert Robin's nest at all.
Recently captured, they did not dare to turn it loose to seek food as they did the goat; and the only way left for them, was to tether it in the thickets of maple and basswood the young tender growth of which the wild prairie horses are very fond of.
There they hang together on the line, these basswood folk, and beside them wave their womankind. These also must be repaired and refitted throughout, as Oscar Fernald's letter-heads used to say of the Thayer House. Jane Barclay, Wife of John, must have the "star light, star bright" wiped out of her eyes.
The best wood for the drill is old, dry, brash, but not punky balsam fir or cotton-wood roots; but basswood, white cedar, red cedar, tamarack, and sometimes even white pine, will do.
An hour later, when the room was in darkness save for the bar of light that streamed in from the platform chandelier, Senator Whitredge entered. "Hilary!" he said. There was no answer. Mr. Whitredge felt in his pocket for a match, struck it, and lighted the single jet over the basswood table. Mr. Vane still sat by the window.
I began to think of the old puzzle of the story of the man with the fox, the goose and a peck of corn, but I solved it by making a basswood rope to which I tied a stone and threw across, then sending the pony over with the other end.
But, after all, trees are perhaps the best expression of silence, massed as they are with the merest hint of movement, and breathing the merest suggestion of a sigh; and seldom have I seen such abundance and variety of trees as along our old canal cedars and hemlocks and hickory dominating green slopes of rocky pasture, with here and there a clump of silver birches bent over with the strain of last year's snow; and all along, near by the water, beech and basswood, blue-gum and pin-oak, ash, and even chestnut flourishing still, in defiance of blight.
But the others were too busy felling or chopping trees into lengths of log to heed Andy's wonderment; and the novices were agreeably surprised to find how dexterous they became in the handling of the axe, after even a few hours' practice. Their spirits rose; for 'nothing succeeds like success, saith the Frenchman. 'Now I'll give you a lesson in basswood troughs, said Mr. Holt.
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