The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories Part 10

The root pondered about this for some little time. He did not mind being called a blockhead, for, when you're a root, you have to submit to being abused. But he couldn't quite understand that remark about the flowers'

dream and so he begged for a further explanation.

"I can feel that the ground is still too hard for me to break through,"

said the seed, "so I don't mind having a chat with you. You see, I was lying inside one of the flowers, when you others were squabbling with them in the summer, and I heard all that you said. I had a fine laugh at you, believe me; but I dared not join in the conversation: I was too green for that."

"Well, but, now that you are big, I suppose you're allowed to talk?"

asked the root.

"Big enough not to care a fig for you!" replied the seed and, at the same time, shot a dear little root into the ground. "I have a root of my own now and need not submit to any of your impudence."

The old root opened his eyes very wide indeed, but said nothing.

"However, I prefer to treat you with civility," said the seed. "After all, in a manner of speaking, you're my father."

"Am I?" asked the root and looked as important as ever he could.

"Of course you are," replied the seed. "You are all of you my parents.

You procured food for me in the earth and the leaves cooked it in the sun. The branches lifted me into the air and light, but the flower rocked me in the bottom of her calyx and dreamed and, in her dream, whispered in the ears of the b.u.mblebees, so that they might tell it to the other lilacs. You all gave me of your best; I owe my whole life to you."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

This gave the root something to think about. It was almost midsummer before he solved the problem. But, when he had got it thoroughly into his stupid head, he asked the branches, in an unusually civil voice, whether there was not a fine little lilac-bush standing near them.

"Certainly there is!" replied the branches. "But you just attend to your business! It's blowing hard enough to topple us all over this very moment."

"Never you fear!" said the root. "I shall hold tight enough. I only wanted to tell you that that little lilac-bush is my child."

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the branches. "Do you think an old black root like you can get such a sweet little child as that? It's prettier and fresher and greener than you can imagine."

"It's my child for all that," said the root, proudly.

And then he told the branches what he had heard from the seed; and the branches repeated it to all the leaves.

"Well, there!" they all said; and then they understood that they were a big family, in which each had his own work to see to.

"Hush!" they said to one another. "Let us be careful not to disturb the flowers in their dream."

And the old root toiled away, as if he were paid for it, to provide lots of food; and the branches stretched and pushed and twisted awfully to supply proper light and air; and the leaves fluttered in the warm summer breeze and looked as if they were doing nothing at all; but, inside them, there was roasting and stewing in thousands of little kitchens.

And up at the top of the bush sat the flowers and dreamed and sang:

"Dear little seed, sing lullaby!

Leaves shall fall and flowers shall die.

You, in the black earth singing low, Into a bonny bush shall grow, A bush with leaves and flowers Scenting June's glad hours!"

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[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BEECH AND THE OAK]

1

It was in the old days.

There were no towns with houses and streets and towering church-steeples. There were no schools. For there were not many boys; and those there were learnt from their fathers to shoot with a bow and arrow, to hunt the deer in his hiding-place, to kill the bear in order to make clothes of his skin and to get fire by rubbing two pieces of wood together. When they knew all this thoroughly, their education was completed.

Nor were there any railways, or tilled fields, or ships on the sea, or books, for there was n.o.body who could read them.

There was hardly anything but trees.

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But then of trees there were plenty. They stood everywhere from coast to coast, mirrored themselves in every river and lake and stretched their mighty branches up into the sky. They stooped over the sea-sh.o.r.e, dipped their branches in the black water of the marshes and looked haughtily over the land from the tall hills.

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They all knew one another, for they belonged to one big family and they were proud of it:

"We are all oak-trees," they said and drew themselves up. "We own the land and we govern it."

And they were quite right, for there were only very few people at that time. Otherwise there was nothing but wild animals. The bear, the wolf and the fox went hunting, while the deer grazed by the edge of the marsh.

The wood-mouse sat outside her hole and ate acorns and the beaver built his ingenious house on the river-bank.

2

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Then, one day, the bear came trudging along and lay down at full length under a great oak-tree.

"Are you there again, you robber?" said the oak and shook a heap of withered leaves over him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 'YOU REALLY OUGHT NOT TO BE SO WASTEFUL WITH YOUR LEAVES, OLD FRIEND,' SAID THE BEAR, LICKING HIS PAWS.]

"You really ought not to be so wasteful with your leaves, old friend,"

said the bear, licking his paws. "They are the only thing you have to keep off the sun with."

"If you don't like me, you can go," replied the oak, proudly. "I am lord of the land and, look where you may, you will find none but my brothers."

"True enough," growled the bear. "That's just the tiresome part of it.

I've been for a little trip abroad, you see, and have been a bit spoilt.

That was in a country down south. I took a nap under the beech-trees there. They are tall, slender trees, not crooked old fellows like you.

And their tops are so dense that the sunbeams can't pierce through them at all. It was a real delight to sleep there of an afternoon, believe me."

"Beech-trees?" asked the oak, curiously. "What are they?"