o
the other lilacs. You all gave me of your best; I owe my whole life to
you."

[Illustration]

This gave the root something to think about. It was almost midsummer
before he solved the problem. But, when he had got it thoroughly into
his stupid head, he asked the branches, in an unusually civil voice,
whether there was not a fine little lilac-bush standing near them.

"Certainly there is!" replied the branches. "But you just attend to your
business! It's blowing hard enough to topple us all over this very
moment."

"Never you fear!" said the root. "I shall hold tight enough. I only
wanted to tell you that that little lilac-bush is my child."

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the branches. "Do you think an old black root like
you can get such a sweet little child as that? It's prettier and fresher
and greener than you can imagine."

"It's my child for all that," said the root, proudly.

And then he told the branches what he had heard from the seed; and the
branches repeated it to all the leaves.

"Well, there!" they all said; and then they understood that they were a
big family, in which each had his own work to see to.

"Hush!" they said to one another. "Let us be careful not to disturb the
flowers in their dream."

And the old root toiled away, as if he were paid for it, to provide lots
of food; and the branches stretched and pushed and twisted awfully to
supply proper light and air; and the leaves fluttered in the warm summer
breeze and looked as if they were doing nothing at all; but, inside
them, there was roasting and stewing in thousands of little kitchens.

And up at the top of the bush sat the flowers and dreamed and sang:

"Dear little seed, sing lullaby!
Leaves shall fall and flowers shall die.
You, in the black earth singing low,
Into a bonny bush shall grow,
A bush with leaves and flowers
Scenting June's glad hours!"

[Illustration]

[Illustration: THE BEECH AND THE OAK]

1

It was in the old days.

There were no towns with houses and streets and towering
church-steeples. There were no schools. For there were not many boys;
and those there were learnt from their fathers to shoot with a bow and
arrow, to hunt the deer in his hiding-place, to kill the bear in order
to make clothes of his skin and to get fire by rubbing two pieces of
wood together. When they knew all this thoroughly, their education was
completed.

Nor were there any railways, or tilled fields, or ships on t