An Echo in the Elms

I recently posted a picture of my grandmother's tulip tree on Face book, entitled "this is what spring is all about".  The cousins all recognized it immediately using phrases like "I'd know that tree anywhere".  And well they should.  My grandmother loved trees.   She taught us all a love for the growing things in our world.  While the tulip tree brings back strong memories, its what I don't have a picture of that brings back more.  The only picture of the grove of elms that once stood behind the big old farmhouse are in my mind.  Their leaves formed a canopy over the simple dirt floor of our playground.  In the heat of summer it was like being in a cool glade, which is actually was.  The cousins, Becky, Patsy ,Cathy, Kay, Crystal and  and I often played a rousing game of "coming to see" beneath those  old branches.  We would take a limb and mark off  rooms and use rocks and old pieces of wood from the woodpile and make our furniture.  Broken dishes destined for the trash would be lovingly rescued and taken to the elms for our play things.  Any old pot that we came across was used as kitchen ware.  We would draw designs in the dirt to form our rugs and the stage was set.  Gathering our children (our doll babies) we would play at neighbors, visiting each other and discussing world events as seen through the eyes of children.
The 1/2 acre elm grove and the cedar tree were delights of my childhood.  The grove itself was a delight of my grandmother's.  We were admonished not to tear the leaves from the tender branches while making "vegetable soup" for our company visits when the game was on.  She told us they needed their leaves like we  need our skin.  I seem to remember the day that Daddy Dwight told her that the elms were all sick, they had something called Dutch Elm Disease.  I don't think I  had ever seen  her like that.  She had the look of someone about to take a dose of nasty tasting medicine.   Later that fall I wasn't there when they took the axes to our elms.  When the following summer came, it was to a bare place where not even  ragged stumps punctuated the ground where we had once played.  The cedar tree stood silent sentinel over our childhood, looking lonely yet strong.  But if I were to go back there and stand where once the gentle elms gathered us into play...my cousins sisters friends...I  believe I  would hear our laughter and feel the cool of the glade echoing down through the years.