AMONG THE TREES AT ELMRIDGE***
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AMONG THE TREES AT ELMRIDGE
BY
ELLA RODMAN CHURCH
1886
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. A SPRING OPENING. CHAPTER II. THE MAPLES. CHAPTER III. OLD ACQUAINTANCES: THE ELMS. CHAPTER IV. MAJESTY AND STRENGTH: THE OAK. CHAPTER V. BEAUTY AND GRACE: THE ASH. CHAPTER VI. THE OLIVE TREE. CHAPTER VII. THE USEFUL BIRCH. CHAPTER VIII. THE POPLARS. CHAPTER IX. ALL A-BLOW: THE APPLE TREE. CHAPTER X. A FRUITFUL FAMILY: THE PEACH, ALMOND, PLUM AND CHERRY. CHAPTER XI. THE CHERRY-STORY. CHAPTER XII. THE MULBERRY FAMILY. CHAPTER XIII. QUEER RELATIONS: THE CAOUTCHOUC AND THE MILK TREE. CHAPTER XIV. HOME AND ABROAD: LINDEN, CAMPHOR, BEECH. CHAPTER XV. THE TENT AND THE LOCUSTS. CHAPTER XVI. THE WALNUT FAMILY AND THE AILANTHUS. CHAPTER XVII. SOME BEAUTIFUL TREES: THE CHESTNUT AND HORSE-CHESTNUT. CHAPTER XVIII. AMONG THE PINES. CHAPTER XIX. GIANT AND NUT PINES. CHAPTER XX. MORE WINTER TREES: THE FIRS AND THE SPRUCES. CHAPTER XXI. THE CEDARS. CHAPTER XXII. THE PALMS.
CHAPTER I.
_A SPRING OPENING._
On that bright spring afternoon when three happy, interested children went off to the woods with their governess to take their first lesson in the study of wild flowers, they saw also some other things which made a fresh series of "Elmridge Talks," and these things were found among the trees of the roadside and forest.
"What makes it look so _yellow_ over there, Miss Harson?" asked Clara, who was peering curiously at a clump of trees that seemed to have been touched with gold or sunlight. "And just look over here," she continued, "at these pink ones!"
Malcolm shouted at the idea:
"Yellow and pink trees! That sounds like a Japanese fan. Where are they, I should like to know?"
"Here, you perverse boy!" said his governess as she laughingly turned him around. "Are you looking up into the sky for them? There is a clump of golden willows right before you, with some rosy maples on one side. What other colors can you call them?"
Malcolm had to confess that "yellow and pink trees" were not so wide of the mark, after all, and that they were very pretty. Little Edith was particularly delighted with them, and wanted to "pick the flowers" immediately.
"They are too high for that, dear," was the reply, "and these blossoms--for that is what they really are, although nothing more than fringes and catkins--are much prettier massed on the trees than they would be if gathered. The still-bare twigs and branches seem, as you see, to be draped with golden and rose-colored veils, but there will be no leaves until these queer flowers have dropped. If we look closely at the twigs and branches, we shall see that they are glossy and polished, as though they had been varnished and then brightened with color by the painter's brush. It is the flowing of the sap that does this. The swelling of the bark occasioned by the flow of sap gives the whole mass a livelier hue; hence the ashen green of the poplar, the golden green of the willow and the dark crimson of the peach tree, the wild rose and the red osier are perceptibly heightened by the first warm days of spring."
[Illustration: MALE CATKIN OF WILLOW.]
"Miss Harson," asked Clara, with a perplexed face, "what are catkins?"
