The ANEMONES
1
"Peewit! Peewit!" cried the lapwing, as he flew over the bog in the wood. "Dame Spring is coming! I can feel it in my legs and wings."
When the new grass, which lay below in the earth, heard this, it at once began to sprout and peeped out gaily from between the old yellow straw. For the grass is always in an immense hurry.
Now the anemones in among the trees had also heard the lapwing's cry, but refused on any account to appear above the earth:
"You mustn't believe the lapwing," they whispered to one another. "He's a flighty customer and not to be trusted. He always comes too early and starts calling at once. No, we will wait quietly till the starling and the swallow come. They are sensible, sober people, who are not to be taken in and who know what they are about."
And the starlings came.
They perched on a twig outside their summer villa and looked about them:
"Too early, as usual," said Mr. Starling. "Not a green leaf and not a fly, except an old tough one of last year, not worth opening one's beak for."
Mrs. Starling said nothing, but looked none too cheerful either.
"If we had only remained in our snug winter-quarters beyond the mountains!" said Mr. Starling. He was angry because his wife did not answer, for he was so cold that he thought a little discussion might do him good. "But it's your fault, just as last year. You're always in such a terrible hurry to come out to the country."
"If I'm in a hurry, I know the reason why," said Mrs. Starling. "And it would be a shame for you if you didn't know too, for they are your eggs just as much as mine."
"Heaven forbid!" replied Mr. Starling, indignantly. "When have I denied my family? Perhaps you expect me, over and above, to sing to you in the cold?"
"Yes, that I do!" said Mrs. Starling, in the tone which he could not resist.
He at once began to whistle as best he could. But, when Mrs. Starling had heard the first notes, she flapped her wings and pecked at him with her beak:
"Will you be quiet at once!" she screamed, angrily. "It sounds so dismal that it makes one feel quite melancholy. You'd better see to it that the anemones come up. I think it's high time. And, besides, one always feels warmer when there are others shivering too."
Now, as soon as the anemones had heard the starling's first whistle, they carefully stuck their heads out of the ground. But they were still so tightly tucked up in their green wraps that one could hardly see them. They looked like green buds that might turn into anything.
"It's too early," they whispered. "It's a shame for the starling to call us. There's no one left in the world that one can trust."
Then the swallow came:
"Tsee! Tsee!"he whistled and darted through the air on his long, pointed wings.
"Out with you, you silly flowers! Can't you see that Dame Spring has come?"
But the anemones had become careful. They just pushed their green wraps a little to one side and peeped out:
"One swallow does not make a summer," they said. "Where is your wife? You have only come to see if it's possible to live here and now you're trying to take us in. But we are not so stupid as all that. We know that, once we catch cold, we're done for."
"You're a pack of poltroons," said the swallow and sat down on the weathercock on the ranger's roof and looked out over the landscape.
But the anemones stood and waited and were very cold. One or two of them, who could not control their impatience, cast off their wraps in the sun. The cold at night killed them; and the story of their pitiful death went from flower to flower and aroused great consternation.
2
Then Dame Spring came, one delightfully mild and still night.
No one knows what she looks like, for no one has ever seen her. But all long for her and thank her and bless her. She goes through the wood and touches the flowers and the trees and they bud at once. She goes through the stables and unfastens the cattle and lets them out into the fields. She goes straight into men's hearts and gladdens them. She makes it difficult for the best-behaved boy to sit still on his bench at school and occasions a terrible lot of mistakes in the exercise-books.
But she does not do this all at once. She attends to her business night after night and comes direct to those who long for her most.
So it happened that, on the very night when she arrived, she went straight to the anemones, who stood in their green wraps and could no longer curb their impatience.
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.
"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 sunshine 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 sunshine 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 pricks. 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."
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.
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.
"Good-morning!" cried the withered beech-leaves. "It's rather too early, young lady: if only you don't come to any harm!"
"Isn't that Dame Spring?" asked the anemone.
"Not just yet," replied the beech-leaves. "It's we, the green leaves you were so angry with in the summer. Now we have lost our brightness and have not much left to make a show of. We have enjoyed our youth and had our fling, you know. And now we are lying here and protecting all the little flowers in the ground against the winter."
"And meanwhile I am standing and freezing in my bare branches," said the beech, crossly.
The anemones talked about it down in the earth and thought it very nice:
"Those dear beech-leaves!" they said.
"Mind you remember it next summer, when I come into leaf," said the beech.
"We will, we will!" whispered the anemones.
For that sort of thing is promised, but the promise is never kept.
The WOOD and the HEATH
1
There was once a beautiful wood, filled with thousands of slender trunks and with singing and whispering in her dark tree-tops.
She was surrounded by field and meadow; and there the farmer had built his house. And field and meadow were good and green; and the farmer was hard-working and grateful for the crops which he brought home. But the wood stood like a lady of the manor, high above them all.
In the winter-time the fields lay flat and miserable, the meadow was merely one great lake with ice upon it and the farmer sat huddled in the chimney-corner; but the wood just stood straight and placid with her bare branches and let the weather storm and snow as it pleased. In the spring, both meadow and field turned green and the farmer came out and began to plough and sow. But the wood burst forth into so great a splendour that no one could hope to describe it: there were flowers at her feet and sunshine in her green tree-tops; the song of the birds echoed in even the smallest bush; and perfume and bright colours and gaiety reigned here and there and everywhere.
Now it happened, one summer's day, while the wood stood waving her branches, that she set eyes upon a funny brown thing which was spreading itself over the hills towards the west and which she had never seen before:
"What sort of fellow are you?" asked the wood.
"I am the heath," said the brown thing.
"I don't know you," said the wood, "and I don't like you: you are so ugly and black, you don't look like the field or the meadow or anything that I know. Can you bud into leaf? Can you blossom? Can you sing?"
"Indeed I can," said the heath. "In August, when your leaves begin to look dark and tired, my flowers will come out. Then I am purple, purple from end to end, and more beautiful than anything you have ever seen."
"You're a braggart!" said the wood; and the conversation dropped.
2
Next year, the heath had crept a little way down the hill, towards the wood. The wood saw this, but said nothing. She thought it beneath her dignity to talk to such an ugly fellow; but, in her heart of hearts, she was afraid. Then she made herself greener and prettier and looked as if there were nothing the matter.
But, every year, the heath came nearer. He had now covered all the hills and lay just outside the fence of the wood.
"Be off!" said the wood. "You annoy me. Take care you don't touch my fence!"
"I'm coming over your fence," said the heath. "I'm coming into you, to eat you up and destroy you."
Then the wood laughed till all her leaves quivered:
"So that's what you mean to do, is it?" she said. "If only you can manage it! I'm afraid that you will find me too big a mouthful. I daresay you think I'm a bit of a field or meadow, which one can walk over in a couple of strides. But I'm the most powerful and important person in the neighbourhood, you may as well know. I shall soon sing my song to you; then perhaps you will change your ways of thinking."
Then the wood began to sing. All the birds sang; and the flowers raised their heads and sang too. The smallest leaf hummed with the rest, the fox stopped in the middle of eating a fat chicken and beat time with his brush, the wind blew through the branches and played an organ accompaniment to the song of the wood:
"Merrier meeting was never yet
Than the festal wood discloses,
When wood-ruff nestles by violet
In a cluster of sweet wild roses.
"Small birds in the brake fly up and down
Nor ever a bird flies single
And the woodman twines for his lass a crown
Where berries and beech commingle.
"Roe, fox and hare hold revel all,
Thro' flowerage the wee worm glances;
There great and small a-dancing fall
And the sun up in Heaven dances."
"What do you say to that?" asked the wood.
The heath said nothing. But, next year, he came over the fence.
"Are you mad?" screamed the wood. "Why, I forbade you to cross the fence!"
"You are not my mistress," said the heath. "I am doing as I said I would."
Then the wood called the red fox and shook her branches so that a quantity of beech-mast fell upon him and remained hanging in his skin:
"Run across to the heath, Foxie, and scatter the beech-mast out there!" said the wood.
"Right you are!" said the fox and jogged away.
And the hare did the same and the marten and the mouse. And the crow lent a hand, for old acquaintance' sake, and the wind took hold and blew and shook the branches till the mast flew far out into the heath.
"That's it!" said the wood. "Now let's see what comes of that."
"Yes, let us!" said the heath.
A certain time passed and the wood grew green and withered and the heath spread more and more and they did not talk to each other. But, one fine spring day, tiny little new-born beeches and oaks peeped up from the ground round about in the heather.
"What do you say now?" asked the wood, triumphantly. "My trees shall grow year after year, till they become tall and strong. Then they shall close their tops over you: no sun shall shine, no rain shall fall upon you; and you shall die, as a punishment for your presumption."
But the heath shook his black twigs earnestly:
"You don't know me," he said. "I am stronger than you think. Your trees will never turn green in me. I have bound the earth under me as firm as iron and your roots can't go through it. Just wait till next year! Then the little fellows you are so pleased with will all be dead."
"You're lying," said the wood.
But she was frightened.
3
Next year, it happened as the heath had said. The little oaks and beeches died as one tree. And now a terrible time came for the wood. The heath spread more and more; on every side there was heather instead of violets and anemones. None of the young trees grew up, the bushes withered, the old trees began to die in their tops, and it was a general calamity.
"It's no longer at all pleasant in the wood," said the nightingale. "I think I shall build somewhere else."
"Why, there's hardly a decent tree left to live in!" said the crow.
"The ground has become so hard that it's no longer possible to dig one's self a proper hole and burrow," said the fox.
The wood was at her wits' end. The beech stretched his branches to the sky in an appeal for help and the oak wrung his in silent despair.
"Sing your song once more!" said the heath.
"I have forgotten it," replied the wood, gloomily. "And my flowers are withered and my birds have flown away."
"Then I will sing," said the heath.
And he sang:
"A goodly song round the moorland goes
When the sun in the east leaps clearer;
And like blood or fire the heather glows
As to autumn the woods draw nearer.
"All day on the moor will the cotton-grass
Weave its white, long bands together;
And softly the snake and the adder pass
Through the stems of the tufted heather.
"On swinging tussock the lapwing leaps,
Lark's note above plover's swelling,
As the crook-backed cotter in silence creeps
From his lonely moorland dwelling."
4
Gradually, as the years passed, things looked worse and worse for the wood. The heath spread farther and farther, until it reached the other end of the wood. The great trees died and toppled down as soon as the storm took a fair hold of them: then they lay and rotted and the heather grew over them. There were now only half a score of the oldest and strongest trees left; but they were altogether hollow and had quite thin tops.
"My time is over, I must die," said the wood.
"Well, I told you so beforehand," replied the heath.
But then the men and women began to grow very frightened at the way the heather was using the wood:
"Where am I to get timber for my workshop?" cried the joiner.
"Where am I to get sticks to put under my pot?" screamed the goodwife.
"Where, oh where, are we to get fuel in the winter?" sighed the old man.
"Where am I to stroll with my sweetheart in the spring?" asked the young one.
Then, when they had looked at the poor old trees for a bit, to see if there was anything to be done with them, they took their spades and mattocks and ran up the hills to where the heath began.
"You may as well save yourselves the trouble," said the heath. "I am not to be dug into."
"Alas, no!" sighed the wood; but she was so weak now that no one could hear what she said.
But they did not mind about that. They hewed and hewed right down through the hard shell. Then they carted earth into the holes and manured it; and then they planted some small trees. They tended them and put their faith in them and screened them against the east wind as well as they could.
And, year after year, the small trees grew. They stood like light, green spots in the middle of the black heather; and, when this had gone on for some time, a little bird came and built a nest in one of them.
"Hurrah!" shouted the men. "Now we've got a wood once more."
"No one can hold his own against men," said the heath. "The thing can't be helped. So we'll move on."
But of the old wood there still remained one tree, who had only one green twig in his top. Here a little bird settled and told of the new wood that was growing up on the hill yonder.
"Thank Heaven!" said the old wood. "What one can't do one's self one must leave to the children. If only they're good for something! They look so thin!"
"I daresay you were thin yourself once," said the bird.
The old wood said nothing to this, for at that very moment she was finished; and so, of course, my story is finished too.