Explore "The Nooning Tree" by Kate Douglas Wiggin on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The giant elm stood in the centre of the squire's fair green meadows, and was known to all the country round about as the "Bean ellum. " The other trees had seemingly retired to a respectful distance, as if they were not worthy of closer intimacy; and so it stood alone, king of the meadow, monarch of the village.
It shot from the ground for a space, straight, strong, and superb, and then bust into nine splendid branches, each a tree in itself, all growing symmetrically from the parent trunk, and casting a grateful shadow under which all the inhabitants of the tiny village might have gathered.