“I planted a-a-a- —Never-green!” Harold Rodman shouted, running to meet us.
“So did we!” we told him merrily, and separated, laughing. It had, it seemed, been a great day, in spite of Mary Elizabeth.
I went into the house, and hovered about the supper table. I perceived that I had missed hot waffles and honey, and these now held no charm. Grandmother Beers was talking.
“When I was eight years old,” she said, “I planted it by the well. And when Thomas went back to England fifty years after, he couldn’t reach both arms round the trunk. And there was a seat there—for travellers.”
I looked at her, and thought of that giant tree. Would those dead-looking little sticks, then, grow like that?
“If fifty thousand school children each planted a tree to-day,” said my mother, “that would be a forest. And planting a forest is next best to building a city.”
“Better,” said my father, “better. What kind of tree did you plant, daughter?” he inquired.
I hung my head. “I—we—there was a picnic,” I said. “We didn't have to plant ’em. So we had a picnic.”
