The Windfairies

they wanted at the farm?

“We want nothing at the farm,” they cried, “but we followed that impudent wench dressed in yellow.”

“Why, what has she done?” asked Adam.

“Done!” they cried. “Why, she came up to the town and asked to marry the miller, and the banker, and the bailiff, and the General, and even the Duke himself, so she deserves to be punished for her presumption.”

Then Adam looked very grave, and went back to the farm and said, “Indeed, Kesta, I cannot marry you now, since you’ve been to the town and tried to get a finer husband than me,” and he went back to his work, and left Kesta sitting all alone; and there she sat and cried by herself, and did not get any husband after all, because she was so false and vain.

The Pool and the Tree

Once there was a tree standing in the middle of a vast wilderness, and beneath the shade of its branches was a little pool, over which they bent. The pool looked up at the tree and the tree looked down at the pool, and the two loved each other better than anything else on earth. And neither of them thought of anything else but each other, or cared who came and went in the world around them.

“But for you and the shade you give me I should have been dried up by the sun long ago,” said the pool.

“And if it were not for you and your shining face, I should never have seen myself, or have known what my boughs and blossoms were like,” answered the tree.

Every year when the leaves and flowers had died away from the branches of the tree, and the cold winter came, the little pool froze over and remained hard and silent till the spring; but directly the sun’s rays thawed it, it again sparkled and danced as the wind blew upon it, and it began to watch its beloved friend, to see the buds and leaves reappear, and together they counted the leaves and blossoms as they came forth.

One day there rode over the moorland a couple of travellers in search of rare plants and flowers. At first they did not look at the tree, but as they were hot and tired they got off their horses, and sat under the shade of the boughs, and talked of what they had been doing. “We have not found much,” said one gloomily; “it seemed scarcely worth while to come so far for so little.”

“One may hunt for many years before one finds anything very rare,” answered the elder traveller. “Well, we have not done, and who knows but what we may yet have some luck?” As he spoke he picked up one of the fallen leaves of the tree which lay beside him, and at once he sprang to his feet, and pulled down one of the branches to examine it. Then he called to his comrade to get up, and he also closely examined the leaves and blossoms, and they talked together eagerly, and at length declared that this was the best thing they had found in all their travels. But neither the pool nor the tree heeded them, for the pool lay looking lovingly up to the tree, and the tree gazed down at the clear water of the pool, and they wanted nothing more, and by and by the travellers mounted their horses and rode away.

The summer passed and the cold winds of autumn blew.

“Soon your leaves will drop and you will fall asleep for the winter, and we must bid each other goodbye,” said the pool.

“And you too when the frost comes will be numbed to ice,” answered the tree; “but never mind, the spring will follow, and the sun will wake us both.”

But long before the winter had set in, ere yet the last leaf had fallen, there came across the prairie a number of men riding on horses and mules, bringing with them a long wagon. They rode straight to the tree, and foremost among them were the two travellers who had been there before.

“Why do they come? What do they want?” cried the pool uneasily; but the tree feared nothing. The men had spades and pickaxes, and began to dig a deep ditch all round the tree’s roots, and then they dug beneath them, and at last both the pool and the tree saw that they were going to dig it up.

“What are you doing? Why are you trying to wrench up my roots and to move me?” cried the tree; “don’t you know that I shall die if you drag me from my pool which has fed and loved me all my life?” And the pool said, “Oh, what can they want? Why do they take you? The sun will come and dry me up without your shade, and I never, never shall see you again.” But the men heard nothing, and continued to dig at the root of the tree till they had loosened all the earth round it, and then they lifted it and wrapped big cloths round it and put it on their wagon and drove away with it.

Then for the first time the pool looked straight up at the sky without seeing the delicate tracery made by the leaves and twigs against the blue, and it called out to all things near it: “My tree, my tree, where have they taken my tree? When the hot sun comes it will dry me up, if it shines down on me without the shade of my tree.” And so loudly it mourned and lamented that the birds flying past heard it, and at last a swallow paused on the wing, and hovering near its surface, asked why it grieved so bitterly. “They have taken my tree,” cried the pool, “and I don’t know where it is; I cannot move or look to right or left, so I shall never see it