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Title: The Springtime
   [the tenth story in "A Little Book of Profitable Tales"]
Author: Field, Eugene (1850-1895)
Date of first publication: 1889
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1894
Date first posted: 23 July 2010
Date last updated: 23 July 2010
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #578

This ebook was produced by:
David Edwards, woodie4
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

This file was produced from images generously made available
by the Internet Archive/American Libraries





THE SPRINGTIME.


A child once said to his grandsire: "Gran'pa, what do the flowers mean
when they talk to the old oak-tree about death? I hear them talking
every day, but I cannot understand; it is all very strange."

The grandsire bade the child think no more of these things; the flowers
were foolish prattlers,--what right had they to put such notions into a
child's head? But the child did not do his grandsire's bidding; he loved
the flowers and the trees, and he went each day to hear them talk.

It seems that the little vine down by the stone-wall had overheard the
south wind say to the rosebush: "You are a proud, imperious beauty now,
and will not listen to my suit; but wait till my boisterous brother
comes from the North,--then you will droop and wither and die, all
because you would not listen to me and fly with me to my home by the
Southern sea."

These words set the little vine to thinking; and when she had thought
for a long time she spoke to the daisy about it, and the daisy called in
the violet, and the three little ones had a very serious conference;
but, having talked it all over, they came to the conclusion that it was
as much of a mystery as ever. The old oak-tree saw them.

"You little folks seem very much puzzled about something," said the old
oak-tree.

"I heard the south wind tell the rosebush that she would die," exclaimed
the vine, "and we do not understand what it is. Can you tell us what it
is to die?"

The old oak-tree smiled sadly.

"I do not call it death," said the old oak-tree; "I call it sleep,--a
long, restful, refreshing sleep."

"How does it feel?" inquired the daisy, looking very full of
astonishment and anxiety.

"You must know," said the old oak-tree, "that after many, many days we
all have had such merry times and have bloomed so long and drunk so
heartily of the dew and sunshine and eaten so much of the goodness of
the earth that we feel very weary and we long for repose. Then a great
wind comes out of the north, and we shiver in its icy blast. The
sunshine goes away, and there is no dew for us nor any nourishment in
the earth, and we are glad to go to sleep."

"Mercy on me!" cried the vine, "I shall not like that at all! What,
leave this smiling meadow and all the pleasant grass and singing bees
and frolicsome butterflies? No, old oak-tree, I would never go to sleep;
I much prefer sporting with the winds and playing with my little
friends, the daisy and the violet."

"And I," said the violet, "I think it would be dreadful to go to sleep.
What if we never should wake up again!"

The suggestion struck the others dumb with terror,--all but the old
oak-tree.

"Have no fear of that," said the old oak-tree, "for you are sure to
awaken again, and when you have awakened the new life will be sweeter
and happier than the old."

"What nonsense!" cried the thistle. "You children shouldn't believe a
word of it. When you go to sleep you die, and when you die there's the
last of you!"

The old oak-tree reproved the thistle; but the thistle maintained his
abominable heresy so stoutly that the little vine and the daisy and the
violet were quite at a loss to know which of the two to believe,--the
old oak-tree or the thistle.

The child heard it all and was sorely puzzled. What was this death, this
mysterious sleep? Would it come upon him, the child? And after he had
slept awhile would he awaken? His grandsire would not tell him of these
things; perhaps his grandsire did not know.

It was a long, long summer, full of sunshine and bird-music, and the
meadow was like a garden, and the old oak-tree looked down upon the
grass and flowers and saw that no evil befell them. A long, long
play-day it was to the little vine, the daisy, and the violet. The
crickets and the grasshoppers and the bumblebees joined in the sport,
and romped and made music till it seemed like an endless carnival. Only
every now and then the vine and her little flower friends talked with
the old oak-tree about that strange sleep and the promised awakening,
and the thistle scoffed at the old oak-tree's cheering words. The child
was there and heard it all.

One day the great wind came out of the north. Hurry-scurry! back to
their warm homes in the earth and under the old stone-wall scampered the
crickets and bumblebees to go to sleep. Whirr, whirr! Oh, but how
piercing the great wind was; how different from his amiable brother who
had travelled all the way from the Southern sea to kiss the flowers and
woo the rose!

"Well, this is the last of us!" exclaimed the thistle; "we're going to
die, and that's the end of it all!"

"No, no," cried the old oak-tree; "we shall not die; we are going to
sleep. Here, take my leaves, little flowers, and you shall sleep warm
under them. Then, when you awaken, you shall see how much sweeter and
happier the new life is."

The little ones were very weary indeed. The promised sleep came very
gratefully.

"We would not be so willing to go to sleep if we thought we should not
awaken," said the violet.

So the little ones went to sleep. The little vine was the last of all to
sink to her slumbers; she nodded in the wind and tried to keep awake
till she saw the old oak-tree close his eyes, but her efforts were vain;
she nodded and nodded, and bowed her slender form against the old
stone-wall, till finally she, too, had sunk into repose. And then the
old oak-tree stretched his weary limbs and gave a last look at the
sullen sky and at the slumbering little ones at his feet; and with that,
the old oak-tree fell asleep too.

The child saw all these things, and he wanted to ask his grandsire about
them, but his grandsire would not tell him of them; perhaps his
grandsire did not know.

The child saw the storm-king come down from the hills and ride furiously
over the meadows and over the forest and over the town. The snow fell
everywhere, and the north wind played solemn music in the chimneys. The
storm-king put the brook to bed, and threw a great mantle of snow over
him; and the brook that had romped and prattled all the summer and told
pretty tales to the grass and flowers,--the brook went to sleep too. With
all his fierceness and bluster, the storm-king was very kind; he did not
awaken the old oak-tree and the slumbering flowers. The little vine lay
under the fleecy snow against the old stone-wall and slept peacefully,
and so did the violet and the daisy. Only the wicked old thistle
thrashed about in his sleep as if he dreamt bad dreams, which, all will
allow, was no more than he deserved.

All through that winter--and it seemed very long--the child thought of
the flowers and the vine and the old oak-tree, and wondered whether in
the springtime they would awaken from their sleep; and he wished for the
springtime to come. And at last the springtime came. One day the
sunbeams fluttered down from the sky and danced all over the meadow.

"Wake up, little friends!" cried the sunbeams,--"wake up, for it is the
springtime!"

The brook was the first to respond. So eager, so fresh, so exuberant was
he after his long winter sleep, that he leaped from his bed and
frolicked all over the meadow and played all sorts of curious antics.
Then a little bluebird was seen in the hedge one morning. He was
calling to the violet.

"Wake up, little violet," called the bluebird. "Have I come all this
distance to find you sleeping? Wake up; it is the springtime!"

That pretty little voice awakened the violet, of course.

"Oh, how sweetly I have slept!" cried the violet; "how happy this new
life is! Welcome, dear friends!"

And presently the daisy awakened, fresh and beautiful, and then the
little vine, and, last of all, the old oak-tree. The meadow was green,
and all around there were the music, the fragrance, the new, sweet life
of the springtime.

"I slept horribly," growled the thistle. "I had bad dreams. It was
sleep, after all, but it ought to have been death."

The thistle never complained again; for just then a four-footed monster
stalked through the meadow and plucked and ate the thistle and then
stalked gloomily away; which was the last of the sceptical
thistle,--truly a most miserable end!

"You said the truth, dear old oak-tree!" cried the little vine. "It was
not death,--it was only a sleep, a sweet, refreshing sleep, and this
awakening is very beautiful."

They all said so,--the daisy, the violet, the oak-tree, the crickets,
the bees, and all the things and creatures of the field and forest that
had awakened from their long sleep to swell the beauty and the glory of
the springtime. And they talked with the child, and the child heard
them. And although the grandsire never spoke to the child about these
things, the child learned from the flowers and trees a lesson of the
springtime which perhaps the grandsire never knew.

1885.




[End of _The Springtime_ by Eugene Field]
