Now and then Nature asserts herself and does something so astonishing and overpowering as actually to strike through the crust of human stupidity, and convince mankind that a tree is something greater than they are.

As a general thing the human race has a stupid hatred of trees.

They embrace every chance to cut them down.

They have no idea of their fitness for anything but firewood or fruit bearing.

But a great cathedral elm, with shadowy aisles of boughs, its choir of whispering winds and chanting birds, its hush and solemnity and majestic grandeur, actually conquers the dull human race and asserts its leave to be in a manner to which all hearts respond; and so the great elms of New England have got to be regarded with a sort of pride as among her very few crown jewels, and the Pitkin elm was one of these.
But wasn't it a busy time in Mapleton! Busy is no word for it.