This created no little excitement throughout the town, and everybody protested.
"Oh, I wouldn't, Mr. Hardaker," said Mr. Prouty, the village minister; "it has been a landmark here for many years, and it is really, as things have come to be, an object lesson in history to all the children and youth around."
"Humph!" said the old farmer, crossly. "I ain't a-settin' up landmarks for folks, or a-givin' objec' lessons. I pay taxes for all that sort of thing to be did in the schools—awful big taxes, too. I can't raise the money to pay 'em without cuttin' timber pretty stiddy. I calc'late there's—wa'al, a thousan' foot o' lumber in that ar pine, an' I can't afford to leave it stan' no longer."
The old farmer scowled and shook himself as he walked away. He was evidently more "sot" than ever on cutting down "George Washington."
There was a bright boy in town, the son of a Mr. Farnsworth, and named, like so many other bright American boys, after the father of his country. As might have been expected of a boy with such a name, Master George Washington Farnsworth had been brought up to think very highly of his namesake, and all of the Farnsworth family were justly indignant when the news of Farmer Hardaker's intention reached them.
"I declare," said his sister Grace, "it almost seems like killing a real person."
"Well," said her mother, thoughtfully, "you can't expect to find much sentiment in a grasping, narrow-minded man like Mr. Hardaker. There isn't any use in saying much about it, but it is too bad to do it—on his birthday, too. I'm really ashamed to be so 'worked up,' but it seems as if a tree like that might be allowed to stand till it died a natural death."
"The bolt that strikes the towering cedar dead
Glides harmless o'er the hazel's lowly head.'"
quoted Grace.
"Cedars and hazels alike fall before Farmer Hardaker's rapacious axe," said her mother, smiling. "I fancy that he doesn't skip anything, judging from the looks of the poor, shorn mountain-side. It's too bad!"