‘They’ve cut it down!’ cried Sam.
‘They’ve cut down the Party Tree!’ He pointed to where the tree had
stood under which Bilbo had made his Farewell Speech. It was lying
lopped and dead in the field. As if this was the last straw Sam burst
into tears. (J.R.R. Tolkien, Return of the King)
It began in the morning. I was instructing my
daughter in adding multiples of ten to two digit numbers. The younger
children were running in and out of our kitchen nook where we were
working. The nook gives a full view of our backyard and the neighbors’
trees towering above their privacy fence. And then I saw the cherry
picker going towards the 50-year-old maple tree in our next door
neighbor’s backyard. They had trimmed it back severely last autumn. It
was a beautiful old maple tree, providing cool shade and beautiful
yellow leaves in the fall. The tree trimmer began to take all of the
budding branches off one of the big branches. I could not stand the
tension. I closed the blinds, and made another cup of coffee. There was
no way that I could teach my daughter and watch the destruction of the
tree.
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