The Pearl Story Book Part 10

THE FIR TREE

O singing Wind Searching field and wood, Cans't thou find Aught that's sweet or good-- Flowers, to kiss awake, Or dewy gra.s.s, to shake, Or feathered seed Aloft to speed?

Replies the wind: "I cannot find Flowers, to kiss awake, Or dewy gra.s.s to shake, Or feathered seed Aloft to speed; Yet I meet Something sweet, When the scented fir,-- Balsam-breathing fir-- In my flight I stir."

Edith M. Thomas.

WHY BRUIN HAS A STUMPY TAIL

(Norwegian Legend)

Once upon a time a sly fox lived in a deep forest which bordered a river. One fine winter day he was lying in the sun near a brush heap with his eyes closed, and he was thinking: "It has been several days since I had a dainty supper. How I should enjoy a fine large fish this evening. I'll slip over to the edge of the forest and watch the fishermen as they go home with their day's catch. Perhaps good luck will do something for me."

Now one old man had caught a very fine lot of fish of all sizes.

Indeed, he had so many that he was obliged to hire a cart in which to carry them home. He was driving along slowly when suddenly he noticed a red fox crouched under the bush near the road. He stopped his horse, jumped down from the cart, and carefully crept near the spot where he had seen Master Reynard. The fox did not open his eyes nor move a muscle.

"Well," said the old fisherman, "I do believe he is dead! What a fine coat he has. I will take him home and give him to my wife for a present." He lifted the fox and put him into the cart among the fish.

The old man then mounted to his seat and drove merrily on, thinking how pleased his wife would be with the fine fish and the fox. When they were well on their way, the sly fox threw one fish after another out of the cart until all lay scattered along on the road; then he slipped out of the cart.

When the old man reached his cottage, he called out to his wife, "Come and see the fine fish I caught to-day. And I have brought you a beautiful gift, also."

His wife hurried to the cart and said, "Where are the fish, my husband, and where is my present?"

"Why, there in the cart," he replied.

"In the cart!" exclaimed his wife. "Why, there is nothing here; neither fish nor present, so far as I can see."

The old man looked and to his great surprise and disappointment he discovered that what his wife said was true.

Meanwhile, the sly fox had gathered up the fish and had taken them to the forest in order to enjoy a fine supper. Presently he heard a pleasant voice saying, "Good evening, Brother Reynard."

He looked up and saw his friend Bruin. "Oh, good evening to you,"

answered the fox. "I have been fis.h.i.+ng to-day, and, as you see, luck certainly attended me."

"It did, indeed," answered the bear. "Could you not spare me one fish?

I should consider the gift a great favor."

"Oh," answered the fox, "why don't you go fis.h.i.+ng yourself? I a.s.sure you when one becomes a fisherman, he thoroughly enjoys the fruits of patience."

"Go fis.h.i.+ng, my friend," said Bruin, in astonishment. "That is impossible. I know nothing about catching fish, I a.s.sure you."

"Pooh, it is very easy, especially in the winter time when ice nearly covers the river. Let me tell you what to do. Make a hole in the ice and stick your tail down into it. Hold it there just as long as you can and keep saying, 'Come, little fish; come, big fish.' Don't mind if the tail smarts a little; that only means that you have a bite, and I a.s.sure you the longer you hold it there the more fish you will catch. Then all at once, out with your tail. Give a strong pull sideways, then upward, and you'll have enough fish to last you several days. But mind you, follow my directions closely."

"Oh, my friend, I am very grateful for your kind information," said Bruin, and off he went to the river where he proceeded to follow Master Fox's directions.

In a short time sly Reynard pa.s.sed by, and when he saw Bruin patiently sitting on the ice with his tail in a hole, he laughed until his sides ached. He said, wickedly, under his breath: "A clear sky, a clear sky!

Bruin's tail will freeze, Bruin's tail will freeze."

"What did you say, my friend?" asked the bear.

"Oh, I was making a wish," replied the fox.

All night long Bruin sat there, fis.h.i.+ng patiently. Then he decided to go home. How very heavy his tail felt. He thought to himself that all the fish in the river must be fastened there. In a little while the women of the village came to get water from the river, and when they saw the bear, they called out at the top of their voices: "Come, come!

A bear, a bear! Kill him! Kill him!"

The men came quickly with great sticks in their hands. Poor Bruin gave a short pull sideways and his tail snapped off short. He made off to the woods as fast as he could go, but to this day he goes about with a stumpy tail.

PINES AND FIRS

Mrs. Dyson

Pines and firs! Who knows the difference between a pine and a fir!

These trees are first cousins; they often dwell together in our woods; they are evergreen; they have narrow, pointed leaves; and they bear cones, and so we often call them all firs, as if they were brothers.

This may satisfy strangers and pa.s.sers-by who only turn their heads and say: "Ah! a fir wood," but it will not be sufficient for the friends of the trees. Pines and firs are as different as oaks and beeches; and who would not be ashamed to take a beech for an oak!

A fir is the shape of a church steeple or a spear-head about to cleave the sky. The lowermost branches come out in a ring and spread out straight and stiff like the spokes of a wheel. Above this whorl is another of shorter branches still, and so on, till the top ring is quite a little one round a pointed shoot. The little shoots fork out on each side of the big branches, and like them are set closely with leaves. These shoots do not point up to the sky nor down to the earth; they spread out flat, so that the branch looks like a huge fern.

Pines begin to grow like firs; but as they shoot up side by side in the woods, their lower branches drop off for want of air and suns.h.i.+ne, and their upper branches spread out wider. A fir is a pyramid with a pointed top; but a full-grown pine has a flat top, and often a tall, bare trunk, so that it looks like a great umbrella. A famous Roman writer, Pliny, said that the smoke of a volcano was like a pine tree.

The smoke shoots up in a great pillar from the mouth of the fiery mountain, and then spreads itself out in a black cap.

You have often amused yourselves with finding pictures in the clouds.

Have you seen a pillar of mist rise up from the horizon, the meeting line of the earth and sky, and then lose itself in a soft cloud? The country people in some parts of Europe call this cloud-form _Abraham's tree_ or _Adam's tree_, because it is so like a pine tree.

When the clouds break up into the soft, white, fleecy ripples that we call a mackerel sky, they say, "We shall have wind, for Adam's tree is putting forth leaves."

The pine trees dress themselves in long, blue-green, rounded needles set in bundles of two, three, or more, bristling out all round their branches; but the fir trees wear short, narrow, flat leaves of a yellow-green colour, set singly each one by itself. These fir leaves come out all round the stem just as pine leaves do, but they are parted down the middle as we sometimes part our hair, so that they spread out flat in two thick rows.

Mr. Ruskin calls the pines and firs and their relations the builders with the sword, because of their narrow, pointed leaves, and the broad-leaved trees he calls the builders with the s.h.i.+eld. The trees of the sword stand erect on the hills like armed soldiers prepared for war; while the trees of the s.h.i.+eld spread themselves in the valleys to shelter the fields and pastures.

Why do these mountain trees have such narrow leaves? Can you find out a reason? Perhaps this is one: when the great, strong wind is raging with all his force, he will not suffer any resistance but breaks down everything that tries to stay him in his course; if he meets broad leaves and heavy branches, he hurls them out of his way, but he just whistles through the slender leaves and branches of the pines and firs, and scarcely knows they are there.

When you gather the cones in the wood, you may know at once whether they have fallen from pine trees or from fir trees. A pine cone looks like a single piece of carved solid wood until it opens, and then each hard scale shows a thick, square head; but the fir cones are made of broad, papery scales, with thin edges laid neatly one over the other.

Now you will never have any difficulty in knowing the pines from the firs, even in the far distance--colour, form, dress, fruit, all are different.

How is it we make a mistake, and call the Scotch pine by the name of Scotch fir? Perhaps it is because this tree is the only one of the great pine and fir family that is a real native of Britain. Our stay-at-home ancestors who lived above three hundred years ago never saw a real fir, and so their one pine had to represent all its relations. They knew it perhaps better than we do, for in their days there were many forests that have since been cut down to make room for houses and gardens and fields.

Sometimes when you have been walking over the moorland you have run to gather some bright yellow moss, and have suddenly found your foot sinking into wet, black mud, and you have heard stories of men and horses sucked down by just such dreadful slime. Hundreds of years ago forests stood where now lie these dangerous bogs, and the trees and shrubs rotting and decaying in the wet have changed into black, brown swamps. Many bogs have been drained, and the trunks of pine trees have been found in them standing as they grew. In one bog in Yorks.h.i.+re pine trees were found sawn across and left to lie and rot. Who felled these trees which have been lying there hundreds of years? Can we tell? Yes; for among the trees are scattered axe-heads and Roman coins, and we are able to picture the old story of the place. There was once a forest there, and the ancient Britons hid themselves in its shelter, and the Romans cut down the trees to drive them from their hiding-place.