They turned into a soft, pine-carpeted way on the left, and in the length of a bow-shot seemed buried in the forest.
"Lassie, wait!"
Turning her head, Lassie saw that Alva had stopped behind, and was standing still beside where a little pine-tree was growing out from under a big glacial boulder. She went back to her.
"Dear, look at this little tree. Here's my daily text."
"How?"
"Do you see how it has grown out and struggled up from under the rock?"
Lassie nodded.
"You know very little of what makes up life, dear. I've sent for you to teach you." She lifted her eyes earnestly to the face near hers, and her own eyes were full of appeal. "Lassie, try to understand all I say to you these days; try to believe that it's worth learning. See this little tree—" she touched her fingers caressingly to the pine branches as she spoke—"it's a very little tree, but it has taught me daily since I came, and I believe that you can learn of it, too."
Lassie's big eyes were very big indeed. "Learn of a tree!"
Alva lifted one of the little stunted uneven branches tenderly in her fingers. "This is its lesson," she said; "the pine-cone fell between the rocks; it didn't choose where it would fall, it just found itself alive and under the rocks; there wasn't much earth there, but it took root and grew. There was no room to give out branches, so it forced its way crookedly upward; crookedly because there was no room to grow straight, but always upward; there wasn't much sunlight, but it was as bravely green as any other tree; the big rock made it one-sided, but it put out thickly on the side where it had space. My life hasn't been altogether sunlit. I was born between rocks, and I have been forced to grow one-sided, too. But the tree's sermon came home to me the first day that I saw it. Courageous little tree, doing your best in the woods, where no one but God could take note of your efforts,—you'll be straight and have space and air and sunshine in plenty next time—next time! Oh, blessed 'next time' that is to surely right the woes of those who keep up courage and continue fighting. That's the reward of all. That's the lesson."