Chapter 20

And so Miss Katy's ball came off, and the performers kept it up from sundown till daybreak, so that it seemed as if every leaf in the forest were alive. The Katy-dids, and the Mosquitoes, and the Locusts, and a full orchestra of Crickets made the air perfectly vibrate, insomuch that old Parson Too-whit, who was preaching a Thursday evening lecture to a very small audience, announced to his hearers that he should certainly write a discourse against dancing, for the next weekly occasion.

The good Doctor was as good as his word in the matter, and gave out some very sonorous discourses, without in the least stopping the round of gayeties kept up by these dissipated Katy-dids, which ran on, night after night, till the celebrated Jack Frost epidemic, which occurred somewhere about the first of September.

Poor Miss Katy, with her flimsy green satin and point-lace, was one of the first victims, and fell from the bough in company with a sad shower of last year's leaves. The worthy Cricket family, however, avoided Jack Frost by emigrating in time to the chimney-corner of a nice little cottage that had been built in the wood that summer.

There good old Mr. and Mrs. Cricket, with sprightly Miss Keziah and her brothers and sisters, found a warm and welcome home; and when the storm howled without, and lashed the poor naked trees, the Cricket on the warm hearth would chirp out cheery welcome to papa as he came in from the snowy path, or mamma as she sat at her work-basket.

"Cheep, cheep, cheep!" little Freddy would say. "Mamma, who is it says 'cheep'?"

"Dear Freddy, it is our own dear little cricket, who loves us and comes to sing to us when the snow is on the ground."

So when poor Miss Katy-did's satin and lace were all swept away, the warm home-talents of the Crickets made for them a welcome refuge.

THE BEECH AND THE OAK

By Carl Ewald

It all happened long, long ago. There were no towns then with houses and streets, and church steeples domineering over everything.

There were no schools, for there were not many boys, and those that there were learnt from their father to shoot with the bow and arrow, to hunt the stag in his covert, to kill the bear in order to make clothes out of his skin, and to rub two pieces of wood together till they caught fire. When they knew this perfectly, they had finished their education.

There were no railways either, and no cultivated fields, no ships on the sea, no books, for there was nobody who could read them.

There was scarcely anything except Trees. But Trees there were in plenty. They stood everywhere from coast to coast; they saw themselves reflected in all the rivers and lakes, and stretched their mighty boughs up towards heaven. They leaned out over the shore, dipped their boughs in the black fen water, and from the high hills looked out proudly over the land.

They all knew each other, for they belonged to a great family, and were proud of it.

"We are all _Oak_ Trees," they said. "We own the land, and rule over it."

And they were right. There were only a few human beings there in those days, and those that there were were nothing better than wild animals. The Bear, the Wolf, and the Fox went out hunting, while the Stag grazed by the edge of the fen. The Field Mouse sat outside his hole and ate acorns, and the Beaver built his artistic houses by the river banks.

One day the Bear came trudging along and lay down at full breadth under a great Oak Tree, "Are you there again, you robber?" said the Oak, and shook a lot of withered leaves down over him.

"You should not squander your leaves, my old friend," said the Bear, licking his paws. "That is all the shade you can give against the sun."

"If you are not pleased with me, you can go," answered the Oak proudly. "I am lord in the land, and whatever way you look you find my brothers and nothing else."

"True," muttered the Bear. "That is just what is so sickening. I have been for a little tour abroad, I may tell you, and am just a little bit spoilt. It was in a land down towards the south--there I took a nap under the Beech Trees. They are tall, slim Trees, not crooked old things like you. And their tops are so dense that the sunbeams cannot creep through them. It was a real pleasure there to take a midday nap, I assure you."

"Beech Trees?" said the Oak inquisitively. "What are they?"

"You might well wish you were half as pretty as a Beech Tree," said the Bear. "But I don't want to chatter any more with you just now. I have had to trot a mile on account of a confounded hunter who struck me on one of my hind legs with an arrow. Now I should like to have a sleep, and perhaps you will be kind enough to leave me at peace, since you cannot give me shade." The Bear stretched himself out and closed his eyes; but he got no sleep _that_ time, for the other Trees had heard his story, and they began chattering and talking and rustling their leaves in a way never known in the wood before.

"What on earth can those Trees be?" said one of them.

"It is, of course, a mere story; the Bear wishes to impose upon us," said the other.

"What kind of Trees can they be whose leaves sit so close together that the sunbeams cannot creep between them?" asked a Little Oak, who was listening to what the big ones were talking about.

But by his side stood an old gnarled Tree, who gave the Little Oak a clout on the head with one of his lowest boughs. "Hold your tongue," he said, "and don't talk till you have something to talk about. You need none of you believe a word of the Bear's nonsense. I am much taller than you, and I can see far out over the wood. But so far as ever I can see, there is nothing but Oak Trees."

The Little Oak was shamefaced, and held his tongue; and the other big Trees spoke to one another in low whispers, for they had great respect for the old one.

But the Bear got up and rubbed his eyes. "Now you have disturbed my midday nap," he growled angrily, "and I declare that I will have my revenge. When I come back I will bring some Beech nuts with me, and I vow you will all turn yellow with jealousy when you see how pretty the new Trees are."

Then he made off. But the Oaks talked the whole day long one to another about the funny Trees he had told them about. "If they come, I will kill them," said the Little Oak Tree, but directly afterwards he got one on the head from the Old Oak.

"If they come, you shall treat them politely, you young dog," said he. "But they will not come."

But in this the Old Oak was wrong, for they did come.

Towards autumn the Bear came back and lay; down under the Old Oak. "My friends down there wish me to present their compliments," he said, and he picked some funny things out of his shaggy coat. "Here you may see what I have for you."

"What is it?" asked the Oak.

"That is _Beech_" answered the Bear--"the Beech nuts which I promised you." Then he trampled them into the ground and prepared to go back.

"It is a pity I cannot stay and see how angry you will be," he growled, "but those confounded human beings have begun to press one so hard. The day before yesterday they killed my wife and one of my brothers, and I must see about finding a place where I can live in peace. There is scarcely a spot left where a self-respecting Bear can stay. Goodbye, you old, gnarled Oak Trees!"

When the Bear had shambled off, the Trees looked at one another anxiously.

"Let us see what comes of it," said the Old Oak.

And after this they composed themselves to rest. The winter came and tore all their leaves off them, the snow lay high over the whole land, and every Tree stood deep in his own thoughts and dreamt of the spring.

And when the spring came the grass stood green, and the birds began singing where they left off last. The flowers came up in multitudes from the earth, and everything looked fresh and gay. The Oak Trees alone stood with leafless boughs.

"It is the most dignified thing to come last!" they said to one another. "The kings of the wood do not come till the whole company is assembled."

But at last they came. All the leaves burst forth from the swollen buds, and the Trees looked at one another and complimented one another on their beauty. The Little Oak had grown ever so much. He was very proud of it, and he thought that he had now the right to join in the conversation. "Nothing has come yet of the Bear's Beech Trees," he said jeeringly, at the same time glancing anxiously up at the Old Oak, who used to give him one on the head.

The Old Oak heard what he said very plainly, and the other Trees also; but they said nothing. Not one of them had forgotten what the Bear had told them, and every morning when the sun came out they peeped down to look for the Beeches. They were really a little uneasy, but they were too proud to talk about it.

And one day the little shoots did at last burst forth from the earth. The sun shone on them, and the rain fell on them, so it was not long before they grew tall.

"Oh, how pretty they are!" said the Great Oak, and stooped his crooked boughs still more, so that they could get a good view of them. "You are welcome among us," said the Old Oak, and graciously inclined his head to them. "You shall be my foster--children, and be treated just as well as my own."

"Thanks," said the Little Beeches, and they said no more.

But the Little Oak could not bear the strange Trees. "It is dreadful the way you shoot up into the air," he said in vexation. "You are already half as tall as I am. But I beg you to take notice that I am much older, and of good family besides."

The Beeches laughed with their little, tiny green leaves, but said nothing.

"Shall I bend my branches a little aside so that the sun can shine better on you?" the Old Tree asked politely.

"Many thanks," answered the Beeches. "We can grow very nicely in the shade."

And the whole summer passed by, and another summer after that, and still more summers. The Beeches went on growing, and at last quite overtopped the Little Oak.

"Keep your leaves to yourself," cried the Oak; "you overshadow me, and that is what I can't endure. I must have plenty of sunshine. Take your leaves away or I perish."

The Beeches only laughed and went on growing. At last they closed together over the Little Oak's head, and then he died. "That was a horrid thing to do," a great Oak called out, and shook his boughs in terror.

But the Old Oak took his foster-children under his protection. "It serves him right," he said. "He is paid out for his boasting. I say it, though he is my own flesh and blood. But now you must behave yourselves, Little Beeches, or I will give you a clout on the head."

Years went by, and the Beeches went on growing, and they grew till they were tall young Trees, which reached up among the branches of the Old Oak.

"You begin to be rather pushing," the Old Tree said. "You should try to grow a little broader, and stop this shooting up into the air. Just see where your branches are soaring. Bend them properly, as you see us do. How will you be able to hold out when a regular storm comes? I assure you the Wind gives one's head a good shaking. My old boughs have creaked many a time; and what do you think will become of the flimsy finery that you stick up in the air?"

"Every one has his own manner of growth, and we have ours," answered the young Beeches. "This is the way it's done where we come from, and we are perhaps as good as you are."

"That is not a polite way of speaking to an old Tree with moss on his boughs," said the Oak. "I begin to repent that I was so kind to you. If you have a spark of honourable feeling alive in you, be good enough to move your leaves a little to one side. There have been scarcely any buds on my lowest branches this year, you overshadow me so."

"I don't quite understand how that concerns us," answered the Beeches. "Every one has quite enough to do to look after himself. If he is equal to his work, and has luck, it turns out well for him; if not, he must be prepared to go to the wall. That is the way of the world."

Then the Oak's lowest branch died, and he began to be seriously alarmed. "You are pretty things," he said, "if this is the way you reward me for my hospitality. When you were little I let you grow at my feet, and sheltered you against the storm, I let the sun shine on you as much as ever he would, and I treated you as if you were my own children. And in return for all this you stifle me."

"Stuff and nonsense!" said the Beeches. So they put forth flowers and fruit, and when the fruit was ripe the Wind shook the boughs and scattered it round far and wide.

"You are quick people like me," said the Wind. "I like you for it, and am glad to do you a good turn." And the Fox rolled on the ground at the foot of the Beech Trees and got his fur full of the prickly fruits, and ran with them far out into the country. The Bear did the same, and grinned into the bargain at the Old Oak while he lay and rested in the shadow of the Beeches. The Field Mouse was beside himself with joy over his new food, and thought that Beech nuts tasted much nicer than acorns. All round new little Beech Trees shot up, which grew just as fast as their parents, and looked as green and as happy as if they did not know what an uneasy conscience was.

But the Old Oak gazed sadly out over the wood. The light-green Beech leaves were peeping out everywhere, and the Oaks were sighing and bewailing their distress to one another. "They are taking our strength out of us," they said, and shook as much as the Beeches around would let them. "The land is ours no longer." One bough died after another, and the Storm broke them off and cast them on the ground. The Old Oak had now only a few leaves left at the very top. "The end is near," he said gravely.

By this time there were many more human beings in the land than there were before, and they made haste to hew down the Oaks while there were still some remaining.

"Oak timber is better than Beech timber," they said.

"At last we get a little appreciation," said the old Oak, "but we have to pay for it with our lives."

Then he said to the Beech Trees,--"What was I thinking of when I helped you on in your young days? What an old stupid I was! Before that, we Oak Trees were lords in the land; and now every year I see my brothers around me perishing in the fight against you. It will soon be all over with me, and not one of my acorns has sprouted under your shade. But before I die I should like to know the name you give to such conduct."

"That will not take long to say, old friend," answered the Beeches. "We call it _competition,_ and that is not any discovery of our own. It is competition which rules the world."

"I do not know these foreign words of yours," said the Oak. "I call it mean ingratitude." And then he died.

THE OAK AND THE SNAIL

By Mrs. Alfred Gatty

The trunk of the Oak Tree in the corner of the timber yard lay groaning under the plank, which a party of children had thrown across him to play see-saw upon.

Not that the plank was so heavy, even with two or three little ones sitting on each end, nor that the Oak was too weak to hold it up--though, of course, the pressure was pretty strong just at the centre, where the plank balanced. But it was such a use to be put to!

The other half of the Tree had been cut into beautiful even planks, some time before, but this was the root end, and his time had not yet come, and he was getting impatient.

"Here we go up, up, up!" cried the children, as the plank rose into the sky on one side. "I shall catch the tree-tops--no! the church steeple--no! the stars."

Or, "Here we go down, down, down!" cried the others. "Safe and snug on the ground--no! right through the world--no! out at the other side. Ah! steady there, stupid old stump!" This was because the plank had swerved, not the Tree.

And so the game went on; for the ups and downs came in turns, and the children shrieked with delight, and the poor Tree groaned loudly all the time.

"And I am to sit here; and bear not only their weight but their blame, and be called stupid and be told to keep steady, when it is they who are giddy and can't be depended upon; and to be contented, while they do nothing but play pranks and enjoy themselves," said he; but he said it to himself, for he did not know which to complain to--the children or the plank. As he groaned, however, he thought of the time when he was king of the little wood, where he had grown up from the acorn days of his babyhood, and it broke his heart to be so insignificant now.

"Why have they not cut me into planks like the rest?" continued he, angrily. "I might have led the see-saw myself then, as this fellow does, who leans so heavily on my back, without a thought that I am as good or better than himself. Why have they not given me the chance of enjoying myself like these others--up in the sky at one end, down on the ground at the other, full of energy and life? The whole timber yard, but myself, has a chance. Position and honour, as well as pleasure, are for everybody except me. But I am to stick in a corner merely for others to steady themselves upon--unthought of or despised, made a tool of--Miserable me!"

Now this groaning was so dreadful, it woke the large Garden Snail in the grass hard by, whose custom it was to come out from his haunt under the timber-yard wall every morning at sunrise, and crawl round and round the Oak trunk to see the world come to life, leaving a slimy track behind him on the bark wherever he moved. It was his constitutional stroll, and he had continued it all the season, pursuing his morning reflections without interruption, and taking his nap in the grass afterwards, as regularly as the day came round.

But napping through such lamentation was impossible, and accordingly he once more began to crawl up the side of the Oak trunk, his head turning now to one side, now to the other, his horns extended to the utmost, that, if possible, he might see what was the matter.

But he could not make out, though he kept all his eyes open: so by-and-by he made the inquiry of his old friend the Tree.

"What is the matter, do you ask?" groaned the Oak more heavily than ever--"you who can change your position and act independently when you wish; you who are _not_ left a useless log as I am, the scorn and sport of my own kith and kin? Yes, the very planks who balance themselves on my body, and mock me by their activity, have probably come from my own side, and once hung on me as branches, drinking in life from the life I gave. Oh miserable me! miserable, despised, useless!"

Now there may be plenty of animals to be found with more brilliant abilities and livelier imagination than the Snail, but for gravity of demeanour and calmness of nerve who is his equal? And if a sound judgment be not behind such outward signs, there is no faith to be put in faces!

Accordingly, Sir Helix Hortensis--so let us call him, for that is his scientific name--made no answer at first to the wailings of the Oak. Three times he crawled round it, leaving three fresh traces of his transit, before he spoke, his horns turning hither and thither as those wonderful eyes at the end strove to take in the full state of the case. And his are not the eyes, you know, which waste their energies in scatter-brained staring. He keeps them cool in their cases till there is something to be looked at, and then turns them inside out to do their work.

And thus he looked, and he looked, and he looked, while the children went on shouting, and the plank went on see-sawing, and the Tree went on groaning; and as he looked, he considered.

"Have you anything to say?" at last inquired the Oak, who had had long experience of Sir Helix's wisdom.

"I have," answered the Snail. "You don't know your own value, that's all."

"Ask the see-sawers my value!" exclaimed the prostrate Tree, bitterly. "One up at the stars, another beyond the world! What am _I_ doing meanwhile?"

"Holding them both up, which is more than they can do for themselves," muttered the Snail, turning round to go back to the grass.

"But--but--stop a moment, dear Sir Helix; the see-sawers don't think that," argued the Tree.

"They're all light-minded together, and don't think," sneered the Snail. "Up in the sky one minute, down in the dust the next. Never you mind that. Everybody can't play at high jinks with comfort, luckily for the rest of the world. Sit fast, do your duty, and have faith. While they are going flightily up and down, your steady balance is the saving of both."

THE STORY OF A STONE

By David Starr Jordan

Once on a time, a great many years ago, so many years that if your father should give you a dollar for every year you could buy up the whole town you live in and have enough left to pay the National Debt; in those old days when the great Northwest consisted only of a few hills, ragged and barren, and full of copper and quartz; in the days when the Northern Ocean washed the crest of Mount Washington and wrote its name upon the Pictured Rocks, and the tide of the Pacific swept over Plymouth Rock and surged up against Bunker Hill; when the Gulf of Mexico rolled its warm and shallow waters as far north as Escanaba and Eau Claire; in fact, an immensely long time ago--there lived somewhere in Oconto County, Wisconsin, a little jelly-fish. It was a curious creature, about the shape of half an apple, and the size of a cat's thimble, and it floated around in the water and ate little things and opened and shut its umbrella, pretty much as jelly-fishes do in the ocean now.

It had a great many little feelers that hung down all around like so many mites of snakes, and so it was named Medusa, after that lady in the old times who wore snakes instead of hair, and who felt so badly because she couldn't do them up. Well, our little Medusa floated around and opened and shut her umbrella for a long time--a month, or a year, perhaps--we don't know how long. Then, one morning, down among the sea-weeds, she laid a whole lot of tiny eggs, transparent as crab-apple jelly and much smaller than a dew-drop on the end of a pine-leaf. Now she leaves the scene, and our story henceforth concerns only one of these eggs.

Well, one day, the sun shone down into the water--the same sun that shines through your window now--and a little fellow whom we will call Favosites, because that was his name, woke up inside of the egg and came out into the great world. He was only a wee bit of floating jelly, shaped like a cartridge pointed at both ends. He had at his sides an immense number of little paddles that went flapping, flapping all the time, keeping him constantly in motion, whether the little fellow wanted to go or not. So he kept scudding along in the water, dodging from right to left, to avoid the ungainly creatures that wanted to eat him. There were crabs and clams, of a fashion that neither you nor I will ever see alive. There were huge animals with great eyes, savage jaws and long feelers, that sat in the end of a long, round shell and glowered at him, and smaller ones of the same kind that looked like lobsters in a dinner-horn.

But none of these got the little fellow, else I should not have any story to tell.

At last, having paddled about long enough, he thought of settling in life. So he looked around until he found a flat bit of shell that just suited him, when he sat down upon it, and grew fast, like old Holger Danske, in the Danish myth. Only, unlike Holger, he didn't go to sleep, but proceeded to make himself at home. So he made an opening in his upper side, and rigged for himself a mouth and a stomach, and put a whole row of feelers out, and began catching little worms and floating eggs and bits of jelly and bits of lime,--everything he could get,--and cramming them into his little stomach.