ird. "But, honestly speaking, I prefer things
as they were in the old days. Then one could sit here in peace and
quiet. Now we run the risk every moment of somebody or other coming and
sticking up his head and saying, 'Well, I never!' or 'Did you ever?' or
'O-oh!' or 'A-ah!'"

"Never in my born days have I known anything like it," said the nearest
poplar. "Did you hear how the squire talked of his proud and stately
poplars? We, who have stood guard along the road to his manor-house,
summer and winter, year after year, all equally straight and still ...
quite ordinary poplars, he called us! And then that disgusting, vulgar
willow-tree!... That rotten old stump!... And he's a relation of ours
into the bargain!... For shame!"

"For shame!... Shame!... Shame!" whispered the poplars along the avenue.

11

One winter's day, a storm came, till all the trees in the wood creaked
and crashed. The wind howled and tore down the avenue and all the proud
poplars swayed like rushes. The snow drifted till sky and earth became
one.

"Now I can hold out no longer," said the old willow-tree.

Then he snapped, right down by his root. The iron hoop which he wore
round his head went clattering down the frozen road. The railing tumbled
over. The garden up at the top was scattered by the wind in every
direction: the black-currant-bush and the strawberry-plant, the
mountain-ash and the little oak, the dandelions and the violets all blew
away; and nobody knows what has become of them since.

The earth-worm lay just below and wriggled:

"I can't stand this," he said. "Let them chop me into two ... into
three.... But this is worse. The ground is as hard as iron: there's not
a hole to creep into. And the frost bites my thin skin. Good-bye, all of
you: I'm dying!"

12

In the spring, the stump of the willow-tree was cleared away. But the
squire ordered that no new tree should be planted in its stead. Every
time he drove past, he told the people with him about the curious old
willow-tree that had had quite a garden in his hollow head.

And the wild rose-bush told it to the birds, who sang the story all over
the world. The oak could never learn to understand it and the
elder-bush said that he had understood it all the time. The blackbird
was caught in a snare and eaten.

But the poplars, stately and indignant as ever, still stand and whisper
along the avenue.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: THE MISTLETOE]

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