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Updated: May 21, 2025
He was not exactly a colt, after all, being four years old, but he was new in the traces of the work-horse and Jake kept an eye on him. "You fellers pitch pretty well fer green hands," acknowledged Jake, when the load was nearly on. He was on the wagon with Sally, placing the forkfuls as they were pitched on. "Expected to see one or 'tother of you git winded and go set down under the ellum.
"Nem mine me, honey," said the old man, "dey can put me somewhar e'se. Hit doan' mattuh 'bout me." "No, Uncle Peter, you must be here with the rest of us. For you know, Uncle Peter, I'm so used to you now, that I should want you to be near me then." Old Peter thought to humour the lad. "Put me down hyuh at de foot er de lot, little Mars' Phil, unner dis ellum tree."
Beech, Maple, Hickory or Ash never spark. Pine knots an' roots don't, but they make smoke like like oh you know. Hemlock, Ellum, Chestnut, Spruce and Cedar is public sparkers, an' not fit for dacint teepee sassiety. Big Injun heap hate noisy, crackling fire. Enemy hear that, an' an' it burns his bedclothes."
So the Deacon inquired of the village folk Where he could find the strongest oak, That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke, That was for spokes and floor and sills; He sent for lancewood to make the thills; The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees; The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese, But lasts like iron for things like these; The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum," Last of its timber, they couldn't sell 'em, Never an axe had seen their chips, And the wedges flew from between their lips, Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips; Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw, Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too, Steel of the finest, bright and blue; Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide; Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide Found in the pit when the tanner died.
Lots of the men folks threw their pipes away, and took to chewin' slipp'ry ellum. "Now, Kenelm smoked like a peat fire. He lit up after breakfast and puffed steadily until bedtime, only puttin' his pipe down to eat, or to rummage in his pocket for more tobacco. Hannah got him to go to one of the anti-tobacco meetin's. He set through the whole of it, interested as could be.
I ain't like to move away from Deephaven now, after I've held by the place so long, I've got as many roots as the big ellum. Well, I should know you were a Brandon, no matter where I see you. You've got a real Brandon look; tall and straight, ain't you? It's four or five years since I saw you, except once at church, and once you went by, down to the shore, I suppose.
Into this valley I plunged, and inquiring my way of many a prim farmer's wife and white-headed school-boy, I edged my way northward under the mountain side, and just before noon found myself beneath the "great ellum," where, nearly twenty years ago, Eben Jackson and Hetty Buel had said good-bye. I tied my horse to the fence and walked up the worn footpath to the door.
They don' know tansy from sorrel, nor slip'ry ellum from pennyroyal, nor burdock from pigweed; they don' know a dand'lion from a hole in the ground; they don' know where the birds put up when it comes on night; they never see a brook afore, nor a bull-frog; they never hearn tell o' cat-o'-nine-tails, nor jack-lanterns, nor see-saws.
And these, ere many days, the autumn winds would scatter, and the leafless branches on which they fell would shake them off lightly, never dreaming that they hid the soul of a home. Nothing but ashes! Poor Tom o' the blueb'ry plains! 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."
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