TO be in line with worthy folk, you soon must plant an elm or oak, a
beech or maple fair to see, a single or a double tree. When winter’s
storms no longer roll, go, get a spade and dig a hole, and bring a
sapling from the woods, and show your neighbors you’re the goods. What
though with years you’re bowed and bent, and feel your life is nearly
spent? The tree you plant will rear its limbs, and there the birds will
sing their hymns, and in its cool and grateful shade the girls will sip
their lemonade; and lovers there on moonlight nights will get Dan Cupid
dead to rights; and fervid oaths and tender vows will go a-zipping
through its boughs. And folks will say, with gentle sigh, “Long years
ago an ancient guy, whose whiskers brushed against his knee, inserted in
the ground this tree. ’Twas but a little sapling then; and he, the
kindest of old men, was well aware that he’d be dead, long ere its
branches grew and spread, but still he stuck it in the mould, and never
did his feet grow cold. Oh, he was wise and kind and brave—let’s place a
nosegay on his grave!”
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