to tree = hide oneself behind one

[Joel S. Berson]

Hawthorne uses "tree" = 'hide oneself behind a tree', a variation
that seems absent from the OED.

Sense 2 is "To drive into or up a tree", trans., also refl.
Sense 3 is "To climb up or perch upon a tree; esp. to take refuge in
a tree from a hunter or pursuer", intr.

Nathaniel Hawthorne.
"Septimius Nortion", in _The Elixer of Life Manuscripts_.
Ohio State Univ. Press, 1977.
ISBN 0-8142-0252-7.

Circa 1862--1863 for the manuscript.  I don't know whether this text
from "Norton" will appear in the extracts published by Julian
Hawthorne in 1890.  Nor do I yet know (but I will when I go on to
read it) whether this or similar text will appear in "Septimius
Felton", whose first and second manuscripts are slightly earlier and
whose first draft was published by Una Hawthorne in
1872.  [Publication dates from page 2.]

Page 226:

"But be careful, Seppy dear. Tree yourself, and watch your chance."

[Aunt Nashoba is urging Septimius to take his musket and join the
patriots at the Concord battle but use trees as a shield.]

Page 231:

... as their forward progress would bring them right over the spot
where Septimius was now standing, weapon in hand, and to avoid the
consequences of so questionable a position, he shrank back a few
steps among the leafless shrubbery, and concealed himself behind the
trunk of a pine or dwarf-oak, on which there was enough dry foliage
of last year to hide him, treeing himself with as instinctive
readiness as the canny Indian among his forest ancestry.

Joel

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