In the early morning, when the dew was bright on the grass, a child
passed along the highway, and sang as he went. It was spring, and the
ferns were unrolling their green bundles, and the hepatica showed purple
under her gray fur. The child looked about him with eager, happy eyes,
rejoicing in all he saw, and answering the birds' songs with notes as
gay as their own. Now and then he dropped a seed here or there, for he
had a handful of them; sometimes he threw one to the birds; again he
dropped one for the squirrels; and still again he would toss one into
the air for very play, for that was what he loved best.
Now it chanced that he passed by a spot where the earth lay bare, with
no tree or plant to cover its brown breast.
"Oh!" said the child. "Poor place, will nothing grow in you? here is a
seed for you, and now I will plant it properly."
So he planted the seed properly, and smoothed the earth over it, and
went his way singing, and looking at the white clouds in the sky and at
the green things unfolding around him.
It was a long, long journey the child had to go. Many perils beset his
path, many toils he had to overpass, many wounds and bruises he got on
the way. When he returned, one would hardly have known, to look at him,
that he was still a child. The day had been cruelly hot, and still the
afternoon sun beat fiercely down on the white road. His clothes were
torn and dusty; he toiled on, and sighed as he went, longing for some
spot of shade where he might sit down to rest.
Presently he saw in the distance a waving of green, and a cool shadow
stretching across the white glowing road: and he drew near, and it was a
tree, young and vigorous, spreading its arms abroad, mantled in green
leaves that whispered and rustled.
Thankfully the child threw himself down in the pleasant shade, and
rested from his weary journey; and as he rested, he raised his eyes to
the green whispering curtain above him, and blessed the hand that
planted the tree.
The little green leaves nodded and rustled, and whispered to one
another:
"Yes! yes! it is himself he is blessing. But he does not know, and that
is the best of all!"