eir 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.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: SOMEWHERE IN THE WOOD]

1

Somewhere in the wood, quite close to one another, lived a little
company of good friends.

There was the sheep's-scabious, who looked as if she had something on
her head, but had not, and the bell-flower, who was so blue and modest.
There was the maiden-pink, meeker and redder and gentler than any, and a
few blades of grass, who were nice and green, but poor and quite
grateful if one as much as looked at them. Then there was some moss,
which grew on the old stump of a tree and kept to itself, and there was
the hazel-bush, who was the finest of them all, both because he was so
big and, especially, because the linnet had built his nest in him.

The friends never had a word.

[Illustration]

They all minded their own business and did not stand in one another's
way. In the evening, when the day's work was done, they listened to the
linnet's song. Or else there would be a creaking in the hazel-bush's
branches; and that wa