Retrieve value from XML directly

I want to know if it is possible to extract and element from a XML in the following fashion. I have tried multiple options such as LinqToXMl and XPath.

<Paper>
  <HeaderText>
     StackOverFlow
  </HeaderText>
</Paper>

For the above XML, if my input is "HeaderText" (the element to be retrieved). How can I do that without accessing the root element?

Thank You!