One day we were cleaning an overgrown path on a hillock near the pond.
We cut down a lot of brier bushes, willows, and poplars,--then came the
turn of a bird-cherry. It was growing on the path, and it was so old and
stout that it could not be less than ten years old. And yet I knew that
five years ago the garden had been cleaned. I could not understand how
such an old bird-cherry could have grown out there. We cut it down and
went farther. Farther away, in another thicket, there grew a similar
bird-cherry, even stouter than the first. I looked at its root, and saw
that it grew under an old linden. The linden with its branches choked
it, and it had stretched out about twelve feet in a straight line, and
only then came out to the light, raised its head, and began to blossom.
I cut it down at the root, and was surprised to find it so fresh, while
the root was rotten. After we had cut it down, the peasants and I tried
to pull it off; but no matter how much we jerked at it, we were unable
to drag it away: it seemed to have stuck fast. I said:
"Look whether it has not caught somewhere."
A workman crawled under it, and called out:
"It has another root; it is out on the path!"