"Grumble, root, and whisper, leaf!
No flower feels the slightest grief.
Long brown shoots, for all your screaming,
Not a flower is baulked of dreaming!"
3
The summer passed and it was autumn.
The young green branches put on their winter coats. The leaves had no winter coats. They took great offence at this and were not content until they had vexed themselves into a jaundice. Then they died. One by one, they fell to the ground and at last they lay in a great heap over the old, cross-grained root.
But the flowers had long since gone to the wall. In their stead were a number of queer, ugly things that rustled whenever the wind blew. And, when the first storm of winter had passed over the lilac-bush, they also fell off and there was nothing left but the bare branches.
"Oh dear!" sighed the branches. "We wouldn't mind changing with you now, you black root. You're having a nice cosy time in the ground just now."
The root did not reply, for he had got something to meditate on. Close beside him, you must know, lay a singular little thing which he simply couldn't make out at all.
"What sort of a fellow are you?" asked the root, but received no answer.
"Can't you answer when you're spoken to by respectable people?" said the root again. "Seeing that we're neighbours, it seems reasonable that we should make each other's acquaintance."