The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories Part 15

And one, two, three! There they stood in newly-ironed white frocks and looked so fresh and pretty that the starlings sang their finest songs for sheer joy at the sight of them.

"Oh, how lovely it is here!" said the anemones. "How warm the sun is!

And how the birds are singing! It is a thousand times better than last year."

But they say this every year, so it doesn't count.

Now there were many others who went quite off their heads when they saw that the anemones were out. There was a schoolboy who wanted to have his summer holidays right away; and then there was the beech, who was highly offended:

"Aren't you coming to me soon, Dame Spring?" he said. "I am a much more important person than those silly anemones and really I can no longer control my buds."

"Coming, coming!" replied Dame Spring. "But you must give me a little time."

She went on through the wood. And, at every step, more anemones appeared. They stood in thick bevies around the roots of the beech and modestly bowed their round heads to the ground.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Look up freely," said Dame Spring, "and rejoice in Heaven's bright sun.

Your lives are but short, so you must enjoy them while they last."

The anemones did as she told them. They stretched themselves and spread their white petals to every side and drank as much suns.h.i.+ne as they could. They pushed their heads against one another and twined their stalks together and laughed and were wonderfully happy.

"Now I can wait no longer," said the beech and burst into leaf.

Leaf after leaf crept out of its green covering and spread out and fluttered in the wind. The whole green crown arched itself like a mighty roof above the earth.

"Good heavens, is it evening so soon?" asked the anemones, who thought that it had turned quite dark.

"No, this is death," said Dame Spring. "Now you're over. It's the same with you as with the best in this world. All must bud, blossom and die."

"Die?" cried some of the small anemones. "Must we die so soon?"

And some of the large anemones turned quite red in the face with anger and arrogance:

"We know all about it!" they said. "It's the beech that's killing us. He steals the suns.h.i.+ne for his own leaves and grudges us a single ray. He's a nasty, wicked thing."

They stood and scolded and wept for some days. Then Dame Spring came for the last time through the wood. She still had the oaks and some other querulous old fellows to visit:

"Lie down nicely to sleep now in the ground," she said to the anemones.

"It's no use kicking against the p.r.i.c.ks. Next year, I will come again and wake you to new life."

And some of the anemones did as she told them. But others continued to stick their heads in the air and grew up so ugly and lanky that they were horrid to look at:

"Fie, for shame!" they cried to the beech-leaves. "It's you that are killing us."

[Ill.u.s.tration: 'FIE, FOR SHAME!' THEY CRIED TO THE BEECH-LEAVES. 'IT'S YOU THAT ARE KILLING US.']

But the beech shook his long boughs, so that the brown husks fell to the ground:

"Wait till autumn, you little blockheads," he said and laughed. "Then you'll just see."

The anemones could not understand what he meant. But, when they had stretched themselves as far as they could, they cracked in two and withered.

3

Summer was past and the farmer had carted his corn home from the field.

The wood was still green, but darker; and, in many places, yellow and red leaves appeared among the green ones. The sun was tired after his hot work during the summer and went to bed early.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

At night, winter stole through the trees to see if his time would soon come. When he found a flower, he kissed her politely and said:

"Well, well, are you there still? I am glad to see you. Stay where you are. I am a harmless old man and wouldn't hurt a fly."

But the flower shuddered at his kiss and the bright dew-drops hanging from her petals froze to ice at the same moment.

Winter went oftener and oftener through the wood. He breathed upon the leaves, till they turned yellow, or upon the ground, till even the anemones, who lay below in the earth, waiting for Dame Spring to come again as she had promised, could feel his breath and shuddered right down to their roots:

"Oh dear, how cold it is!" they said to one another. "How ever shall we last through the winter? We are sure to die before it is over."

"Now my time has come," said winter. "Now I need no longer steal round like a thief in the night. From to-morrow, I shall look every one straight in the face and bite his nose and make his eyes run with tears."

At night, the storm broke loose.

"Let me see you make a clean sweep of things," said winter.

And the storm obeyed his orders. He tore howling through the wood and shook the branches till they creaked and broke. Any that were at all decayed fell down and those that held on had to twist and turn to every side.

"Away with all that finery!" howled the storm and tore off the leaves.

"This is no time to dress yourselves up. Soon there will be snow on the branches: that's another story."

All the leaves fell terrified to the ground, but the storm did not let them lie in peace. He took them round the waist and waltzed with them over the field, high up in the air and into the wood again, swept them together into great heaps and scattered them once more to every side, just as the fit seized him.

Not until the morning did the storm grow weary and go down.

"Now you can have peace for _this_ time," he said. "I am going down till we have our spring-cleaning. Then we can have another dance, if there are any of you left by then."

And the leaves went to rest and lay like a thick carpet over the whole earth.

The anemones felt that it had grown delightfully warm:

"I wonder if Dame Spring can have come yet?" they asked one another.

"I haven't my buds ready!" cried one of them.

"No more have I! No more have I!" exclaimed the others in chorus.

But one of them took courage and just peeped out above the ground.