“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” Abe Lincoln

That Saturday, Felicity gave George a tad more than six hours to get rid of the old fir tree that had been dying gracefully for the past ten years in their yard but he grunted unintelligibly, as is his wont when he knows that an outright refusal might make for a little tension about the place. George, however, had made plans to go fishing with his buddy, Ralphie, and was loath to curtail the expedition, but Fliss ignored his grunt and set off to visit mother. “I’ll be gone all day,” she called to George, “so you’ll have plenty of time.”

George sulked for the first hour then called Ralphie to announce the bad news but his old pal surprisingly sounded almost excited when told why the expedition was off. “Haven’t dropped a tree in years,” he said. “You mean that huge sucker out the front?”

George explained that he’d be unwilling to tackle a yellow pine that size but would Ralphie haul along a chain-saw in case his own failed to start, again.

George sank another couple of coffees then ventured forth to look the situation over.

The Douglas Fir in question lived dangerously close to the house and was probably forty feet or more high. George had some misgivings and mentioned these to Ralphie when he rolled up in his battered pick-up. His friend, however, who possessed a frighteningly huge amount of confidence in his tree-falling abilities, said, “We’ll drop her that away.” He pointed to where Fliss had erected the fancy trellis work that shielded her prize tomatoes.

George protested. “It’ll flatten tomatoes,” he wailed. “We’d better get a ladder and top her first.”

Then Ralphie produced his secret weapon. “This is a sort of sextant, but different,” he explained. “With this I can tell exactly how tall the tree is. Okay?” The secret weapon seemed to be metal triangle mounted on a level and with a sort of telescopic sight on the top. George scratched his head and thought about the simple pleasures of fishing. Meanwhile his buddy marched off towards trellis, pausing occasionally to sight along his weapon. About ten feet short of the tomato patch, he stopped. “It’ll only reach this far, George. Don’t get your shirt-tails in a knot. Only as far as here.” George, reckoning that his friend’s brain, ironed flat, wouldn’t make a decent beer mat, gave one of his non-committal grunts and marched off inside to crack open a couple of beers.

The afternoon, according to George, went somewhat like this. He used his ladder in order to climb that tree and lop off limbs as far as he could reach and only cut his thigh slightly. Ralphie attached a cable to his pick-up, which he’d turned sideways on because the brakes weren’t all that good, and then went to work on another cable with a come-along attached. He fixed this to a large stump then handed up the ends for George to wrap around the tree, then fired up his chain-saw as George’s refused to start. “I’ll make the undercut,” he announced.

George twitched because that tree had an ominous lean towards the house and a breeze was picking up.

But Ralphie had the bit in his teeth. “I’ll drop her,” he called. “You keep the come-along taut,” but that tree swayed and the chain-saw got jammed and George cranked the come-along desperately until, suddenly, it snapped. The tree headed house-wards so George, panicking, leaped and grabbed that other cable where he clung like a frantic gorilla, eight feet up.

Down came the tree, the unaccounted for top ten or so feet falling smack across Ralphie’s pick-up. George couldn’t bring himself to feel sorry and just hoped that that stupid sextant thing got smashed too. At least he wouldn’t be forced to explain to Fliss about that little mis-calculation as the tomatoes were, unlike his thigh and nerves, unscathed.

When George’s thigh healed, he and Fliss cleaned up the mess.