United States or Norway ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


The slate roof was all stained and livid, blotched with the drippings of a great elm that stood at one corner of the neglected lawn, and marks of damp and decay were thick on the uneven walls, which had been washed yellow many years before. There was a porch of trellis work before the door, and Lucian had seen it rock in the wind, swaying as if every gust must drive it down.

His novel, Norwood not very readable, by the way, although full of charming passages abounds in woods and streams, hills and dales, and flowers. "The willows," he tells us somewhere, "had thrown off their silky catkins, and were in leaf; the elm was covered with chocolate-colored blossoms, the soft maple drew bees to its crimson tassels."

The trees swung giddily before the gale, the bare, brown fields were smiling and tidy, and as clean as a floor, and the little streams by the roadside leaped and laughed at the sunlight. Only the birds seemed to be in trouble. A gasping robin clung for a moment to an unsteady perch in a lashing elm, and tried his poor little best to get out a few notes.

"Let us see the great elm," I said, and proceeded to find it, knowing that it was on a certain farm in a place called Johnston, if I remember rightly. I shall never forget my ride and my introduction to the great Johnston elm. I always tremble for a celebrated tree when I approach it for the first time.

These two trees the elm and the liriodendron stand out strongly as individuals in the wealth of our American trees.

The flood rose higher and higher, and in the places where the pretty lambs had played the ugly sea calves now gambolled; men in their boats drew fishes out of the tops of elm trees, and the water nymphs were amazed to come on men's cities under the waves.

March might have added that there were also elm, and sycamore, and ash, and hickory, and walnut, and cotton-wood trees in abundance, with numerous aspen groves, in the midst of which were lakelets margined with reeds and harebells, and red willows, and wild roses, and chokeberries, and prickly pears, and red and white currants.

Have you searched all the way from Panama, your winter home, for this old elm, to celebrate your bird marriage, pass your honeymoon and find much joy in nest-building and rearing a family? Do you know tears and night and nothingness? Or have you found and eaten of the fruit of the trees of life and eternal love? In about three weeks all song ceased.

There was the Old Elm, that dated back to tradition, for no one could remember its youth. She was interested in the conflicts that had ushered in the freedom of the American Colonies. Here the British waited behind their earthworks for Washington to attack them, just as every winter boys congregated behind their snowy walls and fought mimic battles.

Old raw-hide strap, used by my father. No. 3. Ancient Indian arrowhead, found by myself the very day after I began collecting. It resembles a three-cornered stone. No. 4. Ancient Indian bow, found by myself behind a sawmill on the second day of collecting. It resembles a straight stick of elm or oak.