"When James II., the tyrannical brother of Charles II., came to the throne, he changed the government of New England and ordered the people of Connecticut to give up their charter. This they refused to do; and when a third command from the king had been sent to them, they called a special meeting of the a.s.sembly, under their own governor, Treat, and resolved to hold on to the charter which had been given them.

"On the 31st of October, 1687, Sir Edmund Andros, attended by members of his council and a bodyguard of sixty soldiers, entered Hartford to take the charter by force. The General a.s.sembly was in session; he was received with courtesy, but with coldness. He entered the a.s.sembly-room and publicly demanded the charter. Remonstrances were made, and the session was protracted till evening. The governor and his a.s.sociates appeared to yield. The charter was brought in and laid upon the table.

Sir Edmund thought that he had succeeded, when suddenly the lights were all put out, and total darkness followed. There was no noise, no conflict, but all was quiet. When the candles were again lighted, _the charter was gone_! Sir Edmund was disconcerted. He declared the government of Connecticut to be in his own hands, and that the colony was annexed to Ma.s.sachusetts and the other New England colonies, and proceeded to appoint officers. Captain Jeremiah Wadsworth, a patriot of those times, had hidden the charter in the hollow of Wyllis's oak, whence it was afterward known as the Charter Oak."

"Then the English governor couldn't get it!" exclaimed Malcolm, delightedly. "Wasn't that splendid?"

"It was a grand hiding-place, certainly, for no one would think of looking inside a tree for such a thing as that, and they were grand men who preserved their country's liberties in those trying times. But more peaceful years were at hand. About eighteen months after the charter had disappeared so mysteriously, the tyrant James II. was compelled to give up his throne to his daughter and son-in-law, the prince and princess of Orange, and Governor Treat and his a.s.sociates again took the government of Connecticut under the old charter, which the hollow oak had faithfully kept from harm. No tree in our whole country has received more attention than this historic Hartford oak; and when, at last, its mere sh.e.l.l of a trunk was laid low by a storm, it seemed as if a large part of the city had been swept away.

"Ancient oaks are apt to be almost entirely without branches; the huge trunk, with an opening at the top, and often with one also at the bottom, stands like a maimed giant, just tottering, perhaps, to its fall, because of the decay going on within, while outside all seems fair and sound. It was so with the Charter Oak; and when this monarch of the forest was unexpectedly laid low, rich and poor, great and small, were gathered to mourn its loss. A dirge was played and all the bells in the city were tolled at sundown, for this monument of the past was a link gone that could not be replaced."

"Thank you, Miss Harson," said Clara; "_true_ stories are so nice! But I wish I had seen the Charter Oak before it was blown down."

"You could not have done that, dear," was the reply, "unless you had been born about thirty years sooner."

CHAPTER V.

_BEAUTY AND GRACE: THE ASH_.

"What tree comes next, Miss Harson?" asked Clara, on an April day that was mild enough for the piazza. "You told us so many interesting things about the oak that I suppose we needn't expect to hear of another tree like that."

"No," was the reply; "not just like that, perhaps, for the oak is grand and venerable above all our familiar trees, but the ash, which is more especially an American tree, belongs to a large and interesting family, and I am quite sure that you will very much like to hear something about it. I have put it next to the oak because there is a sort of rivalry between the two as to which can get on its spring dress the soonest, and an old English rhyme says,

"'If the oak's before the ash, Then you may expect a splash; But if the ash is 'fore the oak, Then you must beware a soak.'"

"That must mean," said Malcolm, after considering this rather puzzling verse, "that it'll rain any way."

"I think it does," replied Miss Harson, with a smile at Malcolm's air of deep thought, "and it is quite safe to say that in England. But, as 'a soak' sounds more serious than 'a splash,' it is to be hoped that the ash will not get ahead of the oak. I do not know what they are doing in England this year, but here the oak is a day or two ahead. The foliage of the ash is entirely different, as it has _pinnate_ leaves, which means leaves arranged in two rows, one on each side of a common stem, or _petiole_, like--What, Clara?"

"Rose-leaves," was the prompt reply.

"And leaves of the locust trees on the other side of the road," added Malcolm.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE COMMON ASH.]

"And the sumac," said their governess, "and a number of others that might be mentioned. This kind of foliage is always graceful, and the ash is one of our largest and handsomest trees. It is said to be more common in America than in any other part of the globe. In Europe, because of its beauty, it is called the painter's tree. It is a particularly neat and regular-looking tree, and its smooth gray trunk is higher than that of most trees before any branches appear. Where is there a tree on the grounds answering this description, Malcolm?"

"Down at the end of the vegetable-garden," was the reply, "and close beside the laundry."

[Ill.u.s.tration: AMERICAN WHITE ASH.]

"Yes; you are really learning to distinguish trees very well. There are several species--the white, red, black and mountain ash. The white ash is a graceful tree, rising in the forest to the height of seventy or eighty feet, with a straight trunk and a diameter of three feet or more at the base. On an open plain it throws out its branches, with a gentle double curvature, to a distance on every side, and forms a broad, round head of great beauty. The flowers of the ash are greenish white in color and appear with the leaves in loose cl.u.s.ters. 'The trunk of our largest American ash is covered with a whitish bark which in very young trees is nearly smooth; on older trees it is broken by deep furrows into irregular plates, and on very old stems it becomes smooth again, from the rough plates scaling off. The branches are grayish green dotted with gray or white.' Now who can tell _me_ something about this tree?"

"I know that furniture is made of the wood," said Clara, "because that pretty set in the large spare-room is ash. And it is very light-colored."

"The wood is used for a great many things," replied Miss Harson, "and the ash has been called the husbandman's tree because the timber is so much in demand for farming-implements, and for articles that need to be both strong and light. It does not last so long as the oak, but it is more elastic and can better resist sudden shocks and jerks; it is therefore particularly desirable for the spokes of wheels and ladders and the beams of floors. Staircases were made of it in olden times, and they may still be found in some English halls and abbeys. The forest ash makes better oars than any other wood, and the tree has so many good qualities that an old English poet spoke of it as

"'The ash for nothing ill.'

"But Malcolm looks as if he had something to say, and I shall be very happy to hear it."

"It is only about the red berries that they bear in autumn, Miss Harson; it looks queer to see berries growing on a tree."

"The mountain ash is the only one that has berries," replied his governess, "and the bloom is in cl.u.s.ters of white flowers. The berries are sometimes dark red and often of a bright scarlet, and they remain on the tree during the winter, to the great delight of the birds. We should find them very sour, although pretty to look at; but the little feathered wanderers eat them with great relish when the snows of winter make bird-food scarce and the bright-red berries gleam out most invitingly. In some parts of Europe the berries are dried and ground into flour. The rowan, or roan, tree is the English name of the mountain ash, and in some parts of Great Britain it is called _witchen_, because of its supposed power against witches and evil spirits and all their spells. In old times branches of it were hung about houses and stables and cow-sheds, for it was thought that

"'witches have no power Where there is roan-tree wood.'"

"But that isn't true, is it?" asked Edith.

"No, dear, not true of either the witches or the wood. But ignorant people believe a great many foolish things, and the leaves and twigs of the ash tree were thought to have peculiar virtue. In some places it was once the practice to pluck an ash-leaf in every case where the leaflets were of even number, and to say,

"'Even ash, I do thee pluck, Hoping thus to meet good luck; If no luck I get from thee, Better far be on the tree.'"

"It sounds like what children say on finding a four-leafed clover," said Clara.

"It is on the same principle," was the reply, "for clover-leaves grow naturally in threes and ash-leaves in sevens. Both rhymes are equally silly where luck is concerned, and those who believe G.o.d's words--that even 'the hairs of our head are all numbered'--will have no faith in 'luck.' In old times the ash was believed to perform wonderful cures of various kinds, and in remote parts of England a little mouse called the shrew-mouse bore a very bad character. If a horse or cow had pains in its limbs, they were said to be caused by a shrew-mouse running over it.

Our forefathers provided themselves with what they called a shrew-ash, in order to meet the case. The shrew-ash was nothing more than an ash tree in the trunk of which a hole had been bored and a poor little shrew-mouse put in, with many charms and incantations happily long since forgotten."

"And couldn't the poor little mouse get out again?" asked Edith.

"I am afraid not, dear; and we can only rejoice that we did not live in those dark days. Among other beliefs in its virtues, the leaves and wood of the ash were regarded throughout Northern Europe as a protection from all manner of snakes, and in harvest-time children were suspended in their cradles from the branches of tall ash trees while their mothers were working in the harvest-field below. Even now serpents are said to dislike the tree so much that they will not come near it, and the leaf is considered a cure for the bite of a poisonous snake. I have been told that an ash-leaf rubbed on a mosquito-bite will at once take out the sting and itching, and no better remedy can be found for the sting of a bee or a wasp."

"It's ever so much nicer than mud," said Clara, who had rather a talent for getting into hornets' nests.

"But the mud, you see, is always to be had," replied Miss Harson, "while ash-leaves do not grow everywhere; and I do not know that they have any power to cure the sting.

"The other species of ash found in this country are not so important as the white, but the black ash is remarkable as the slenderest deciduous tree of its height to be found in the forest. It is often seventy or eighty feet tall, with a trunk not more than a foot around. The color of the trunk is a dark granite-gray and the bark is rough. The wood is remarkable for its toughness, and for making baskets the Indians prefer it to any other, except the trunk of a young white oak.

"The red ash is very much like the white, but the wood is less valuable.

It is a spreading, broad-headed tree, and the trunk is erect and branching. It is not so tall as the black ash, yet its trunk is three times as thick.

"A species of ash grows in Sicily that yields a substance called _manna_ which used to be valuable as a medicine, and this manna is obtained in the same way as maple-sap--by making holes or incisions in the bark of the tree. At the proper season the persons whose business it is to collect manna begin to make incisions, one after the other, up the stem.

The manna flows out like clear water, but it soon congeals and becomes a solid substance. It has a sweet taste, and while in a liquid state runs into a leaf of the tree that has been inserted in the wound.

Afterward it flows into a vessel placed below, from which it is carried away and shipped off to other countries."

"Is there any story about the ash?" asked Malcolm.

"Not much of a story, dear," was the reply--"only a little legend of the manna trees; but, such as it is, you shall have it:

"The king of Naples, it is said, fenced a number of trees round and forbade any to collect the store they yielded unless they paid a tribute. By this means the royal revenue would be largely increased.

But, according to the story, the manna trees, as if they disapproved of this ungenerous arrangement, refused to yield any manna, and suddenly became bare and barren. Upon this the king, finding his scheme a failure, revoked the tax and took away the fence. Then the trees poured out their manna, as usual, in the greatest abundance; so that it was said, 'When the king found he could not make a gain of what Providence had freely bestowed, he gave up the attempt and left the manna as free as G.o.d had given it.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SWING.]

"There, now!" said Miss Harson; "after this long talk, you had better run off and see if there is not a tree somewhere on the grounds, with two ropes attached to it, that will bear better fruit than any tree we have studied yet."

The trio laughed and raced for the swing, which was first reached by Clara, who seated herself all ready for the push which Malcolm would not grudge, for he p.r.o.nounced his sister sweeter than apple or peach; and so she was.