Treehouse

“ And, lastly, we get a spreading forest tree equalling the red pine in height. At certain times of the year the bark peels off, and then the Temple columns are splashed with crimson and scarlet—wonderfully beautiful.
Surely it is this continual finding of surprises that make one’s progress through the bush so fascinating? Everywhere one sees those strange black ropes, jointed and polished, hanging from the roof in straight lines, or tying tree to tree, twisting and coiling, with neither beginning nor end that one can find. ”

“ Each little cottage, a picture by itself amid its bold forest surroundings, stands long distances away from its neighbours. The outskirts of the forest consist of wide tracts of wobbling meadow, a floating web of roots and herbage, over which one can scarcely move without sinking into water up to the hips. Were you to tread through, down you would go helplessly into the fathomless black swamp. On those vast meadows grow the heavy crops of sweet nutritious grass which make the Spreewald hay valued at Berlin for its quality as is the hay of the Meuse at Paris. ”

“ Already Uncle Jase stood with his back to the broad, straight column whose canopy of leafage spread a green roof between the tall, waving grass that served as a carpet and the blue of a smiling sky.
Through branches, themselves as heavy and stalwart as young trees, and through the myriads of arrow-pointed leaves that rustled as they sifted and shifted the gold flakes of sunlight, sounded the low, mysterious harping of wind-fingers as light and yet as profound as those of some dreaming organist. ”

“ A few miles further on we came to a large, park-like pasture, bounded by a neatly trimmed hedge, and entered by a simple gate, from which a private road ran curving among a few clumps of trees to a mansion about a furlong distant. We entered, and rested ourselves awhile at the foot of some large oaks. The house was nearly hidden among trees, and these, seen across the clear grass land, were the finest groups of foliage we had ever seen. ”

“ Nothing so perfectly sets off a cottage, in external appearance, as the presence of plants and shrubbery around it. A large tree or two, by giving an air of protection, is always in place; and creeping vines, and climbing shrubs about the windows and porch, are in true character; while a few low-headed trees, of various kinds, together with some simple and hardy annual and other flowers—to which should always be added, near by, a small, well-tended kitchen garden—fill up the picture. ”

“ A meadow-sweet had come into that greenhouse and dwelt there in that abode of fine tropical flowers, and one night an elder tree had entered and is now as high as the house, and at the end of the greenhouse grass has come in like a wave; for change and disaster are far-reaching and are only mirrored here. This desolate garden and its mined house are a part of hundreds of thousands such, or millions. ”

“ This morning I took a brisk walk along the sunny terrace, where, from under the shining shelter of holly, laurel, cedar, and all other evergreen shrubs and trees, one looks over a garden—that even now, with its graceful vases, its terraces, its ivy winter dressing, is gay and beautiful—to a lawn that slopes gently to a sheet of water, losing itself like a lake among irregular wooded banks, whose brown feathery outline borrows from the winter's sun a golden tinge of soft sad splendor. ”

“ Shuddering as she passed the hewn fragments of her late source of terror, she led me along the cabbage-walk, as the avenue of magnificent trees (the smallest being forty feet in height) was named, and we soon found ourselves close to a small villa or cottage, surrounded by a broad verandah which was completely covered by luxuriant flowers. The garden was enclosed by lime-trees, which grow there like the holly-bush, full of leaves and fruit, and were wont to be used by the planters of old as a protecting hedge against runaway slaves and wild Carribs. ”

“ By the natural process of evolution we have now arrived at the tree-top house. It is interesting to the writer to see the popularity of this style of an outdoor building, for, while he cannot lay claim to originating it, he was the first to publish the working drawings of a tree-house. ”

“ When under the axe an old tree falls, it is the end of a life well lived, the end of a work well done. But this tree may rise, helped and shaped by happy hands, and become the most sacred place in all this world of ours—a home where lovers live—a cottage with hollyhocks and roses by the door. ”

“ And in sight of all the cottages, rising a little above them, stands the hoary ancient church with giant old elm-trees growing near it, their branches laden with rooks' nests, the air full of the continuous noise of the wrangling birds, as they fly round and round, and go and come bringing sticks all day, one to add to the high airy city, the other to drop as an offering to the earth-god beneath, in whose deep-buried breast the old trees have their roots. ”

“ The lime trees run in a line along the whole of one side of the green, and at their feet still creeps a stream whose minnows hover and dart, and the black and white wagtail runs. Behind the trees are half the cottages of the village, some isolated among their bean rows and sunflowers, some attached in fantastic unions. Most are of one storey, in brick, which the autumn creepers melt into, or in timber and tiles perilously bound together by old ivy ”

“ THE ASH-TREE
THE ASH-TREE
Everyone who has travelled over Eastern England knows the smaller country-houses with which it is studded—the rather dank little buildings, usually in the Italian style, surrounded with parks of some eighty to a hundred acres. For me they have always had a very strong attraction: with the gray paling of split oak, the noble trees, the meres with their reed-beds, and the line of distant woods. ”

“ One side of the churchyard is skirted by a natural grove of forest trees, which separates it from the parsonage, a neat white building that fronts the water, and stands back from it at the head of a noble sweep of land covered with velvet turf, and resembling greatly a gentleman's park at home, by the fine groups of stately forest trees scattered over it, and a semicircular belt of the original forest, that, sloping from the house on either side, extends its wings until it meets the blue waters of the bay, leaving between its green arms a broad space of cleared land. ”

“ Most every tree is made of wood; the best ones are remote from cities; and in their cheerful neighborhood the birds keep singing ragtime ditties. Beneath their limbs the children play and swing within their leafy border, upon the long, bright summer day, when picnic parties are in order. And now and then the poets come, to eulogize the forest spirit, and you can hear their thought works hum, like auto wheels, or pretty near it. And it may chance, upon a day, that farmers from adjacent ranches, will bring a rope along this way, and hang an agent from the branches. ”

“ It takes additional character from bold and picturesque scenery, with which it is in harmony. The pine, spruce, cedar, or hemlock, or the evergreen laurel, planted around or near it, will give it increased effect, while among deciduous trees and shrubs, an occasional Lombardy poplar, and larch, will harmonize with the boldness of its outline. Even where hill or mountain scenery is wanting, plantations such as have been named, would render it a pleasing style of cottage, and give agreeable effect to its bold, sharp roof and projecting eaves. ”

“ And she looked as proudly round the tiny garden plot as if it were as spacious and as wonderful as the famous gardens [Pg 3] of the wicked King Herod, or even those of the Temple High Priest himself.
In the center of the grass plot stood an orange-tree, and under it, in the shade of its glossy leaves, had been placed a light wooden bench. A tall hedge of prickly thorns prevented passers-by on the narrow village street from peeping in. ”

“ On, on he goes: the wood is cleared—the open country is gained. Tree, hedge, and isolated cottage appear but dim points in the landscape—a moment seen, the next left behind; the very hills appear to leap after each other. ”

“ Few estates show so many beautiful trees; they add greatly to the pictorial effect of the place. Graceful elms with swaying branches are on every side, while on the opposite side of the road pine trees are in evidence, and on either side of the stone wall wild shrubs have been planted. There has been no attempt at formal arrangement of the grounds, not even with the garden which is at the side of the house. There has been built simply a picturesque lattice that separates house from barn and over which have been trained attractive vines. ”

“ It was indeed a pleasant place to them, that overgrown old garden; for no gardener looked askance when they dug holes in the gravel paths, or turned the rockery into a grotto large enough to get into themselves and play at elves and witches and mermaids and other delightful games; and no one said them nay when they built a hut upon the lawn—with willow branches and rushes from beside the pond—where they "camped out" many a long summer afternoon, pretending to be gipsies, or soldiers, or Ancient Britons, whichever their fancy pleased. ”

“ But, modern as they are, they have done what they could to put themselves in harmony with the ancientness all about. The slopes are grass-grown and even tree-grown. Within the walls is the caretaker's cottage in the midst of such a wealth of trees, flowering shrubs, and vines as makes a greenwood retreat. ”

“ The old apple tree yonder between the woods and the meadow is as central, as [Pg 15] hospitable, and, if animals talk with one another, just as full of neighborhood news as was grandfather’s roof-tree.
Of course you would never suspect it, passing by. But then, no lover of wild things passes by—never without first stopping, and especially before an old tree all full of holes. Whenever you see a hole in a tree, in a sand-bank, in a hillside, under a rail-pile—anywhere out of doors, stop! ”

“ In the front yard is what is known all over town as the 'big tree,' a silver maple, at least twice as tall as the house. It is so broad that its shade falls over the whole front of the place. In the back is an orchard of old apple trees, and trellises of big blue grapes. On one side is a broad lawn, at the back of which is one of the good old-fashioned flower gardens that does one good to look at. ”

“ The most important thing about all this is that a tree-house is always a source of delight to the boys and young people, and, furthermore, the boys have over and over again proved to the satisfaction of the author that they themselves are perfectly competent to build these shacks, and not only to build them but to avoid accidents and serious falls while engaged in the work. ”

“ The garden hedge which encloses it is as high as the wall of the women's penitentiary at Christianshafen. The gates are never open, and there is no lodge-keeper. The forest adjoins the garden, and the garden runs down to the water's edge. The original owner of the estate was a crank who lived in a hut, which was so overgrown with moss and creepers that I did not pull it down. Never in my life has anything given me such delight as the anticipation of this hermit-like existence. ”

“ Almost every house stands in a tangle of brilliant tropical foliage, and the side streets that run off landwards here and there, are more like Botanic Gardens with a few ornamental cottages let loose among them, than prosaic pieces of a town—so richly does the flood of riotous greenery foam up over low fence tops, and brim into unguarded drains and hollows, so gorgeously do the red and white and golden flowers wreathe tall verandah posts, and carpet ugly tin roofs with a kindly tapestry of leaf, and bloom. ”

“ Every fragment of rock is finished in its effect, tinted with thousands of pale lichens and fresh mosses; every pine tree is warm with the life of various vegetation; every grassy bank glowing with mellowed color, and waving with delicate leafage. How, then, can the contrast be otherwise than painful, between this perfect loveliness, and the dead, raw, lifeless surface of the deal boards of the cottage. ”

“ The rose terrace is divided from the lawn by a treillage of the most delicate and elaborate trellis-work; and this also is wreathed and festooned by running rose vines.
Below this spreads the lawn on every side, not level, but gently waving, and covered with grass as soft, as 44smooth, and as downy as velvet; and everywhere the eye roves with pleasure over a turf of brilliant intense green, except where it is variegated with the floral mosaic work of gay parterres, or trellised arbours, or reservoirs, or single magnificent forest trees left standing in honour of their monarchal grandeur. ”

“ The building on each side was covered by trellis-work; and beautiful creepers, vines, and parasite flowers, now in the full magnificence of the early summer, grew up and clustered round the windows. Every inch of wall was covered, so that none of the glaring whitewash wounded the eye. In the four corners of the patio were four large orange-trees, covered with fruit. ”

“ The meadows fall from the house to the stream; but the greater part of the few acres which we hold is simple woodland, where the copse grows thick and dark, with here and there a stately forest tree. The house seen, as I love best to see it, from the avenue on a winter evening, rises a dark irregular pile, crowned with the cupola and the massive chimneys against a green and liquid sky, in which trembles a single star ”