"I can't stand this," he said. "Let them chop me into two ... into three.... But this is worse. The ground is as hard as iron: there's not a hole to creep into. And the frost bites my thin skin. Good-bye, all of you: I'm dying!"
12
In the spring, the stump of the willow-tree was cleared away. But the squire ordered that no new tree should be planted in its stead. Every time he drove past, he told the people with him about the curious old willow-tree that had had quite a garden in his hollow head.
And the wild rose-bush told it to the birds, who sang the story all over the world. The oak could never learn to understand it and the elder-bush said that he had understood it all the time. The blackbird was caught in a snare and eaten.
But the poplars, stately and indignant as ever, still stand and whisper along the avenue.
