Mrs. R. C. Little, Fielding Lewis Chapter.

More than a hundred years ago, a tiny acorn, dropped by some frisky squirrel or flitting bird, fell to the ground, where it lay unheeded and unknown. Pelted by winter storms, it sank deep into the soft earth where it was nourished and fed, sending out rootlets to take firm hold of the kind mother who had sheltered it.

Soon the summer's sun called it from its underground bed and still clinging with its thread-like roots, it pushed up a green head and looked around the beautiful scenes of woodland, mountain and sky.

Pleased with what it saw, it lifted its head brighter and higher until it became a mighty oak, a monarch of the forest. Birds and squirrels made their homes in it and beneath its shade rested the weary.

All the country around belonged to and was inhabited by the Cherokee Indians, of all known tribes the most civilized and enlightened. No doubt their papooses swung on the branches of this magnificent tree and played under its wide spreading arms.

With the coming of the white man, a town grew up—lovely Marietta, still nestling amid the shadows of Kennesaw, and the Indians were asked to leave their happy homes, and go to strange lands further West. Bewildered and uncomprehending, they were unwilling to go, and groups of them were often seen beneath this same mighty oak—mighty even then, conferring with the whites, and discussing by signs and gestures, the momentous question. When, finally, they were persuaded to accept the proposition of the government, they met in council beneath their favorite tree and signed the treaty, by which they agreed to leave their beautiful North Georgia homes forever.

Within the memory of the oldest inhabitants, the grand oak became historic. It is still standing, and has showed no signs of age, until a fiery bolt found its lofty height and scathed it far down its trunk.

It stands in the yard of Mrs. H. G. Cole, and is, notwithstanding its somewhat crippled condition, the admiration of all beholders. Its girth near the ground is somewhat over eight feet, and seven feet from the ground it measures considerably more than twelve feet around.

Mrs. Cole, though not aged herself, has seen four generations of her own family disporting beneath this noble tree, and should it fall because of age and decay, she and her children would miss and mourn it as a dear lost friend.