CHAPTER V 

 THE LAKEVILLE ELMS 



The after-quiet the calm full fraught; 

 Thou too wilt silent stand, 

 Silent as I, and lonesome as the land. 



Herman Melville 



IN a broad field near Middleboro, on the 

 road to New Bedford, there are standing 

 at the present time two beautiful and 

 towering "wine glass" elms. As you ap- 

 proach them from the north they give the 

 impression of being so close together that 

 the tips of the branches interlock; but 

 upon entering the field by way of the cart 

 road leading in from the main highway they 

 break upon the view as two separate columns, 

 seventy-five feet apart, lifting their heads 

 upward into the sky. Each is slender and 

 graceful, not possessed of great age, but 

 singularly beautiful in its isolation from 

 everything save field and sky and distant 

 woods. 



