Little Ann, not to be outdone, reared up and placed her small front paws on the smooth white bark. She told the ringtail coon that she knew he was there.
After they had quieted down, I called Old Dan to me. 'I'm proud of you, boy,' I said. 'It takes a good dog to stay with a tree all night, but there wasn't any need in you coming back. The coon wouldn't have gotten away. That's why we built the scarecrow.'
Little Ann came over and started rolling in the leaves. The way I was feeling toward her, I couldn't even smile at her playful mood. 'Of course you feel good,' I said in an irritated voice, 'and it's no wonder, you had a good night's sleep in a nice warm doghouse, but Old Dan didn't. He was down here in the cold all by himself, watching the tree. The way you're acting, I don't believe you care if the coon gets away or not.'
I would have said more but just then I noticed something. I walked over for a better look. There, scratched deep in the soft leaves were two little/beds. One was smaller than the other. Looking at Little Ann, I read the answer in her warm gray eyes.
Old Dan hadn't been alone when he had gone back to the tree. She too had gone along. There was no doubt that in the early morning she had come home to get me.
There was a lump in my throat as I said, 'I'm sorry, little girl, I should've known.'
The first half-hour was torture. At each swing of the ax my arms felt like they were being torn from their sockets. I gritted my teeth and kept hacking away. My body felt like it did the time my sister rolled me down the hill in a barrel.
As Papa had said, in a little while the warm heat from the hard work limbered me up. I remembered what my father did when he was swinging an ax. At the completion of each swing, he always said, 'Ha!' I tried it. Ker-wham. 'Ha!' Ker-wham. 'Ha!' I don't know if it helped or not, but I was willing to try anything if it would hurry the job.
Several times before noon I had to stop and rake my chips out of the way. I noticed that they weren't the big, even, solid chips like my father made when he was chopping. They were small and seemed to crumble up and come all to pieces. Neither were the cuts neat and even. They were ragged and looked more like the work of beavers. But I wasn't interested in any beautiful tree-chopping. All I wanted was to hear the big sycamore start popping.
Along in the middle of the afternoon I felt a stinging in one of my hands. When I saw it was a blister I almost cried. At first there was only one. Then two. One after another they rose up on my hands like small white marbles. They filled up and turned a pale pinkish color. When one would burst, it was all I could do to keep from screaming. I tore my handkerchief in half and wrapped my hands. This helped for a while, but when the cloth began to stick to the raw flesh I knew it was the end.
Crying my heart out, I called my dogs to me and showed them my hands. 'I can't do it,' I said. 'I've tried, but I just can't cut it down. I can't hold the ax any longer.'
Little Ann whined and started licking my sore hands. Old Dan seemed to understand. He showed his sympathy by nuzzling me with his head.
Brokenhearted, I started for home. As I turned, from the corner of my eye I saw Grandpa's scarecrow. It seemed to be laughing at me. I looked over to the big sycamore. It lacked so little being cut down. A small wedge of solid wood was all that was holding it up. I let my eyes follow the smooth white trunk up to the huge spreading limbs.
Sobbing, I said, 'You think you have won, but you haven't. Although I can't get the coon, neither can you live, because I have cut off your breath of life.' And then I thought. 'Why kill the big tree and not accomplish anything?' I began to feel bad.
Kneeling down between my dogs, I cried and prayed. 'Please God, give me the strength to finish the job. I don't want to leave the big tree like that. Please help me finish the job.'
I was trying to rewrap my hands so I could go back to work when I heard a low droning sound. I stood up and looked around. I could still hear the noise but couldn't locate it. I looked up. High in the top of the big sycamore a breeze had started the limbs to swaying. A shudder ran through the huge trunk.
I looked over to my right at a big black gum tree. Not one limb was moving. On its branches a few dead leaves hung silent and still. One dropped and floated lazily toward the ground.
Over on my left stood a large hackberry. I looked up to its top. It was as still as a fence post.
Another gust of wind caught in the top of the big tree. It started popping and snapping. I knew it was going to fall. Grabbing my dogs by their collars, I backed off to' safety.
I held my breath. The top of the big sycamore rocked and swayed. There was a loud crack that seemed to come from deep inside the heavy trunk. Fascinated, I stood and watched the giant of the bottoms. It seemed to be righting so hard to keep standing. Several times I thought it would fall, but in a miraculous way it would pull itself back into perfect balance.
The wind itself seemed to be angry at the big tree's stubborn resistance. It growled and moaned as it pushed harder against the wavering top. With one final grinding, creaking sigh, the big sycamore started down. It picked up momentum as the heavy weight of the overbalanced top dove for the ground. A small ash was smothered by its huge bulk. There was a lighting-like crack as its trunk snapped.
