They grow where the keeper put them and let him pluck them when he pleases; I am wild and free and my own mistress."
The dog rubbed himself and shook his wise old head:
"You ought really to have entered men"s service too, old friend," he said. "It"s good and snug there. And what else is to become of old fogeys like you and me? Of course, we have to do what is required of us; but then we get what we want in return."
"Perhaps it"s there you got your fleas?" asked the apple-tree, sarcastically. "For you certainly have all you want of them!"
But the dog had already jogged back into the garden and did not hear.
2
Soon after, a blackbird came flying and perched on one of the tree"s thickest branches. He flapped his wings and then rubbed his beak against the branch.
"You"re welcome," said the apple-tree.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
She knew that the blackbird always did like that, after he had been eating, and she was a courteous tree, when no one offended her.
"Thank you," said the blackbird and went on rubbing his beak.
"You"re working awfully hard to-day," said the tree.
"There"s a stone on the side of my beak," said the blackbird. "It"s there as if it were glued fast; and I can"t get it off, however much I rub."
"What have you had to eat?"
[Ill.u.s.tration]
"I had some beautiful white berries," said the blackbird. "I never tasted anything so good; and I am a judge of berries, as you know. It was somewhere ever so far away; and now I"ve been flying for a day and a half with this silly stone. Every moment, I"ve been trying to get it off.... Ah, there it goes, thank goodness! Now it"s on you, you old Crab-Apple-Tree. You"ll see, you will never get rid of it."
"Just let it be," said the apple-tree, gaily, "and don"t bother about me. It"ll take to its legs, right enough, when it begins to rain and blow."
The blackbird flew away and the crab-apple-tree stood sunk in her own old thoughts, with the stone on her branch. In the evening, it came on to rain violently and the stone slipped slowly down the wet branch, until it reached the underside.
"Now it will drop," thought the apple-tree.
But the stone did not drop. At night, a terrible storm broke loose and all the trees creaked and swayed to and fro. Inside the keeper"s garden, the orange-pippins and the russets fell to the ground by the bushel. But the stone stuck where it was.
"Well, that"s odd!" thought the crab-apple-tree.
And, when the dog came jogging along in the morning, the tree told him of the queer thing:
"What sort of a chap can it be?" she asked.
"I expect it"s a flea," said the dog and rubbed himself. "One can never get rid of them. Does it hop all over you? And bite you?"
"Certainly not," replied the apple-tree. "Last night, it slipped down quite gently to the underside of the branch; and, for that matter, it does me no harm."
"Then it"s not a flea," said the dog.
3
Autumn came and all the good apples in the garden were gathered and stored in the loft. There was no one who cared about the crab-apple-tree. Her apples remained on the branches till they fell to the ground, where they lay and rotted. But the tree was well-pleased with the state of things. She knew that little crab-apple-trees would sprout from them and that was why she had put them forth.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE OLD DOG STOOD ON HIS HIND-LEGS AND BLINKED WITH HIS BLIND EYES]
Then winter came, with frost and snow. The old dog lay all day under the stove in the parlour. The crab-apple-tree stood outside in the snow, with the queer stone under her branch.
When spring returned, the dog, one day, came jogging round the fence.
It took longer than last year and he was now almost quite blind in the other eye as well. But he found his way to the apple-tree and rubbed himself, so that she saw that he still had those fleas.
"All going as usual, Dog?"
"Yes, Apple-Tree.... Same with you?"
"Well, I"ll tell you," said the tree. "I daresay you remember that stone the blackbird brought me? Well, look here, some time ago, I felt a most curious p.r.i.c.king and itching and aching just where it was."
"Then it _must_ be a flea," said the dog.
"Now listen," said the tree. "It was a most unpleasant sensation. And then my branch swelled up at the place where the stone was...."
"It"s a flea, it"s a flea!" cried the dog. "There"s no doubt about it.
Just rub yourself up against me, old Apple-Tree! It"s only fair that I should make you a return for your kindness."
"What does a flea look like?" asked the apple-tree.
"We-ell," said the dog and rubbed himself. "They"re that sort of chaps, you know, that one really never has time to see them."
"Has a flea green leaves?"
"Not that I know of," said the dog.
"Come and look up here," said the tree. "There ... on my lowest branch ... just above your head ... is that a flea?"
The old dog stood on his hind-legs and blinked with his blind eyes:
"I can"t see so far," he said. "But I have never been able to see the fleas on my own tail, so that doesn"t mean anything."
Then he slunk away.
But, a little later, a thin voice came from the apple-tree"s branch and said:
"I am not a flea. I am the mistletoe."