Kids Books: The Boy Who Rode Into The Sunset and other stories (#14)

Very few grown-up people understand houses. Only children understand
them properly, and, if I understand them just a little, it is because
I knew Sym. Sym and his wife, Emily Ann, lived in the Little Red
House. It was built on a rather big mountain, and there were no other
houses near it. At one time, long ago, the mountain had been covered
all over with a great forest; but men had cut the trees down, all but
one big Blue-gum, which grew near the Little Red House. The Blue-gum
and the Little Red House were great friends, and often had long talks
together. The Blue-gum was a very old tree--over a hundred years
old--and he was proud of it, and often used to tell of the time, long
ago, when blackfellows hunted 'possums in his branches. That was
before the white men came to the mountain, and before there were any
houses near it.