"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. Good-bye, 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 gra.s.s stood green, and the birds began singing where they left off last. The flowers came up in mult.i.tudes 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 one to another. "The kings of the wood do not come till the whole company is a.s.sembled."
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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sure 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?"
[Ill.u.s.tration: IN THE EARLY DAYS]
"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 p.r.i.c.kly 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 around 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 _compet.i.tion_, and that is not any discovery of our own.
It is compet.i.tion which rules the world."
"I do not know these foreign words of yours," said the oak. "I call it mean ingrat.i.tude." And then he died.