A big maple sheltered the house of the widow Vaughn. After the
noon hour of a summer day its tide of shadow began flowing fathoms
deep over house and garden to the near field, where finally it
joined the great flood of night. The maple was indeed a robin's
inn at some crossing of the invisible roads of the air. Its green
dome towered high above and fell to the gable end of the little
house. Its deep and leafy thatch hid every timber of its frame
save the rough column. Its trunk was the main beam, each limb a
corridor, each tier of limbs a floor, and branch rose above branch
like steps in a stairway. Up and down the high dome of the maple
were a thousand balconies overlooking the meadow.
From its highest tier of a summer morning the notes of the bobolink
came rushing off his lyre, and farther down the golden robin
sounded his piccolo. But, chiefly, it was the home and refuge of
the familiar red-breasted robin. The inn had its ancient customs.
Each young bird, leaving his cradle, climbed his own stairway till
he came out upon a balcony and got a first timid look at field and
sky. There he might try his wings and keep in the world he knew by
using bill and claw on the lower tiers.
At dawn the great hall of the maple rang with music, for every
lodger paid his score with song. Therein it was ever cool, and
clean, and shady, though the sun were hot. Its every nook and
cranny was often swept and dusted by the wind. Its branches
leading up and outward to the green wall were as innumerable
stairways. Each separate home was out on rocking beams, with its
own flicker of sky light overhead. For a time at dusk there was a
continual flutter of weary wings at the lower entrance, a good
night twitter, and a sound of tiny feet climbing the stairways in
that gloomy hall. At last, there was a moment of gossip and then
silence on every floor. There seemed to be a night-watch in the
lower hall, and if any green young bird were late and noisy going
up to his home, he got a shaking and probably lost a few feathers
from the nape of his neck. Long before daybreak those hungry,
half-clad little people of the nests began to worry and crowd their
mothers. At first, the old birds tried to quiet them with
caressing movements, and had, at last, to hold their places with
bill and claw. As light came an old cock peered about him,
stretched his wings, climbed a stairway, and blew his trumpet on
the outer wall. The robin's day had begun.
Mid-autumn, when its people shivered and found fault and talked of
moving, the maple tried to please them with new and brighter
colours--gold, with the warmth of summer in its look; scarlet,
suggesting love and the June roses. Soon it stood bare and
deserted. Then what was there in the creak-and-whisper chorus of
the old tree for one listening in the night? Belike it might be
many things, according to the ear, but was it not often something
to make one think of that solemn message: "Man that is born of a
woman is of few days and full of trouble"? They who lived in that
small house under the tree knew little of all that passed in the
big world. Trumpet blasts of fame, thunder of rise and downfall,
came faintly to them. There the delights of art and luxury were
unknown. Yet those simple folk were acquainted with pleasure and
even with thrilling and impressive incidents. Field and garden
teemed with eventful life and hard by was the great city of the
woods.