_July 30th._
I fancy that trees have dispositions. At any rate, they have those
qualities which suggest dispositions to all who are in sympathy with
nature, and who look upon facts as letters of an alphabet, by which
one may spell out the hidden meanings of things. Some trees, like the
apple, suggest goodness and humility. They put on no airs. They do not
exalt themselves. They are patient of climate, full of beauty in
blossom, and, in autumn, beautiful in fruit.
The oak, when well grown, has the beauty of rugged strength, and
sometimes it has grandeur. Certain live-oak trees on Helena Island,
near Beaufort, S. C., with long, pendant moss, like a Druid’s beard,
impressed us with a feeling of the sublime in vegetation which we
never experience in the presence of any other tree. Down on our backs
we lay, and gazed up into their vast tops with a pleasure never since
renewed. These were the types of patriarchal dignity.
The American elm is the tree of grace and beauty. It is stately
without stiffness. It carries itself up to such a height that its
drooping boughs do not suggest feebleness, as the weeping-willow does.
And yet, one never has the feeling of sympathy with it or of personal
intercourse. One may sit under its branches, but no one ever sat on or
among them. We admire, but do not sympathize. Still less did any one
ever love a hickory-tree. They are beautiful and stately, but
self-contained. When young, they are dandies; and when old,
aristocrats.
Not so the chestnut-tree. This darling old fellow is a very
grandfather among trees. What a great, open bosom it has! Its boughs
are arranged with express reference to ease in climbing. Nature was in
a good mood when the chestnut-tree came forth. It is, when well grown,
a stately tree, wide-spreading, and of great size. Even in the forest
the chestnut is a noble tree. But one never sees its full development
except when it has grown in the open fields. It then assumes immense
proportions. Having a tendency when cut down to send up many shoots
from the stump, old trees are often found with four or five trunks
springing from the same root. In such cases, no other American tree
covers so wide a space of ground. Not even the oak attains to greater
size or longevity. The Tortworth chestnut, in England, is supposed to
have been standing before the Conquest, 1066, and must be not far from
a thousand years old. The longest known tree in America is the “Rice”
chestnut, on the estate of Marshall I. Rice, at Newton Centre, Mass.
It measures twenty-four feet and three tenths in circumference at the
base, seventy-six feet in height, and spreads its limbs ninety-three
feet. It is vigorous, and still bears enormous crops. This, however,
is a mere stripling compared with the famous chestnut-tree of Mount
Ætna, whose trunk measured about one hundred and sixty feet in
circumference, or some fifty-three feet in diameter, and which could
shelter a hundred horsemen beneath its branches! But this tree, long
hollow, is about giving up the ghost, even if it has not already done
so, no doubt dying in the peaceful consciousness of having spent a
virtuous life, and fed thousands of people with two thousand years’
full of nuts!
There is living in vigor at Sancerre, in France, a tree which, at six
feet from the ground, measures thirty feet in circumference. Michaux
says that he measured several trees in the Carolina mountains of
fifteen or sixteen feet in circumference; which, if a boy is expected
to climb them, is full large enough.
A chestnut-tree in full bloom is a fine sight. It blossoms about the
first of July, in clusters of long, yellowish-white filaments, like a
tuft of coarse wool-rolls. The whole top of the tree is silvered over.
We have never seen them so finely in blossom as this year, and we
foresee a grand harvest for the boys. O, those golden days of October!
The thought of them brings back the days of boyhood, the brilliant
foliage of the forest just putting on its regal garments; the merry
sport of squirrels racing on the ground (if one lies dead-still to
watch), or scampering up the trunks, and leaping from tree to tree
with chirk and bark, if disturbed.
It was a great day when, with bag and basket, the whole family was
summoned to go “a-chestnuting!” There was frolic enough, and climbing
enough, and shaking enough, and rattling nuts enough, and a sly kiss
or two,—but never enough,—and lunch enough, and appetite enough. The
silver brook on the hillside carried down, on its murmuring current,
the golden leaves which the trees, with every puff of wind, sent
shimmering down through the air. Barefooted, as we were all summer
long, the prickly chestnut burs were too sharp for our little tough
feet, and we were glad to pick our way cautiously under the trees.
Long live the chestnut-tree, and the chestnut woods on the
mountain-side, and the boys and girls who frolic under their boughs!
And long live the winter nights, with the homely fare of apples and
nuts, and no stronger drink than cider; and a merry crowd of boys and
girls, with here and there the spectacled old folks; all before a
roaring hickory fire, in an old-fashioned fireplace, big as the
western horizon with the sun going down in it, and with a roguish
stick of chestnut wood in it, which opens such a fusillade of snaps
and cracks as sets the girls to screaming, and throws out such
mischievous coals upon the calico dresses, as obliges every humane boy
to run to the relief of his sweetheart all on fire!
No doubt many an old gentleman will read this article with a face
growing more and more full of smiles, and taking off his spectacles at
the end, and, looking kindly over at his aged dame, will say, “Do you
remember, Polly, when we were at Squire Judson’s—” “Well, well,
father, you are too old to be talking about such youthful follies.”
Nevertheless, she smiles and looks kindly over at the old rogue who
kissed her that night, proposed on the way home, and was married
before Christmas.