I WONDER if you have ever heard a story which begins like this: "Once
upon a time, in the far depths of the Big Deep Woods, there was a Big
Hollow Tree with three hollow branches. In one of these there lived a
'Coon, in another a 'Possum, and in the third a Big Black Crow."
That was the way the first story began in a book which told about the
Hollow Tree People and their friends of the Big Deep Woods who used to
visit them, and how they all used to sit around the table, or by the
fire, in the parlor-room down-stairs, where they kept most of their
things, and ate and talked and had good times together, just like
folk.[A]
And the stories were told to the Little Lady by the Story Teller, and
there were pictures made for them by the Artist, and it was all a long
time ago--so long ago that the Little Lady has grown to be almost a big
lady now, able to read stories for herself, and to write them, too,
sometimes.
But the Story Teller and the Artist did not grow any older. The years do
not make any difference to them. Like the Hollow Tree People they remain
always the same, for though to see them you might think by their faces
and the silver glint in their hair that they are older, it would not be
so, because these things are only a kind of enchantment, made to
deceive, when all the time they are really with the Hollow Tree People
in the Big Deep Woods, where years and enchantments do not count. It was
only Mr. Dog, because he lived too much with Mr. Man, who grew old and
went away to that Far Land of Evening which lies beyond the sunset,
taking so many of the Hollow Tree stories with him. We thought these
stories were lost for good when Mr. Dog left us, but that was not true,
for there came another Mr. Dog--a nephew of our old friend--and he grew
up brave and handsome, and learned the ways of the Hollow Tree People,
and their stories, and all the old tales which the first Mr. Dog did not
tell.
And now, too, there is another Little Lady--almost exactly like the
first Little Lady--and it may be that it is this Little Lady, after all,
who keeps the Artist and the Story Teller young, for when she thought
they might be growing older, and forgetting, she went with them away
from the House of Many Windows, in the city, to the House of Low
Ceilings and Wide Fireplaces--a queer old house like Mr. Rabbit's--built
within the very borders of the Big Deep Woods, where they could be
always close to Mr. 'Coon and Mr. 'Possum and the Old Black Crow, and
all the others, and so learn all the new tales of the Hollow Tree.