Pretty soon we got the stump all pulled. There was only a hole where it had been and the rotted wood was scattered around on the grass, and we felt pretty good about it, because nobody wants old stumps sticking up in their yards. Swatty said maybe my father would give me a quarter for pulling the stump and I thought maybe he would, too. We all felt as if we had done something pretty fine, and I wished I could go and get my mother and have her come out and see how good our capstan was and have her say, “Why, that's fine, Georgie! I'll have your father give you a quarter when he comes home.” But I remembered about Mrs. Martin. I remembered that my mother would probably never think anything I ever did again was any good at all. So I didn't call her.
Just then Ladylove—my grandmother—came out of the side door. She stood a moment on the top step, looking, and then she came down to the grass and started toward us. She had a plate in her hand, and there were graham crackers on it, because there were no cookies that day. I guess she heard us shouting and thought we would like some graham crackers, because we were boys.
As soon as I saw her I jumped and ran toward her, because she was some one we could show what we had done.
“Come here, Ladylove,” I shouted. “Come on, we want to show you what we did with our capstan!”
“Yes! yes!” she said.
So I took the plate of crackers, and with the other hand I sort of steadied her elbow, because our yard wasn't very smooth and she didn't walk very steady or very fast. We came to where the capstan was, and she steadied herself with one hand on it.
“There!” I said. “See what we did, Ladylove! We pulled that old tree stump right out of the ground. We got rid of that old stump all right!”
Ladylove stood quiet so long that I got frightened. She looked up at the sky and when she looked down at me there were tears in her eyes. I could see them.
“My tree! My beautiful tree!” she said. “Ah, Georgie, could you kill my tree?” And then she closed her eyes and held out her hands and said:
“Degenerate Douglas! Oh, the unworthy lord!
Whom mere despite of heart could so far please
To level with the dust a noble horde,
A brotherhood of venerable trees!”