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Book, page 11 / 55 "A little flaxen-haired girl sat on the broad doorstep at my feet, and caught the canker-worms in her white apron. She liked to see them hump up their backs, and measure off the inches of her white checked apron with their little green bodies. And I, although I liked them well enough at first, was not sorry to lose them when they went. I heard the child's mother telling her that they had come down to make for themselves beds in the earth, where they would sleep until the early spring, and wake to find themselves grown into moths just like their mothers, who climbed up the tree to lay eggs. We shall see when next spring comes if that is so. Now, since they went, I have done my best to refresh my leaves, and keep young and happy; and here are my sweet blossoms to prove that I have yet within me vigorous life." The elm-tree heard what the linden sung, and said, "Very true, very true. I, too, have suffered from the canker-worms; but I have yet leaves enough left for a beautiful shade, and the poor crawling things must surely eat something." And the elm bowed gracefully to the linden, out of sympathy for him. But the linden has heard the voices of the young robins who live in the nest among his highest boughs; and he must yet tell to the horse- chestnut how sad it was the other day in the thunder-storm, when the wind upset the nest, and one little bird was thrown out and killed; while the father and mother flew about in the greatest distress, until Charley came, climbed the tree, and fitted the nest safely back into its place. How much the trees have to say! And there is the pine, who was born and brought up in the woods,--he is always whispering secrets of the great forest, and of the river beside which he grew. The other trees can't always understand him: he is the poet among them, and a poet is always suspected of knowing a little more than any one else. Sometime I may try to tell you something of what he says; but here ends the talk of the trees that stood in the village street. HOW THE INDIAN CORN GROWS
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