Meanwhile, the swine rummaged among the dead leaves, and trod them under foot, and tossed the decaying mould hither and thither with their snouts and feet, until one of them by accident rolled our acorn down a little hill, where it lay buried under some stray leaves many yards from the edge of the forest, in the outskirts of a park. There it lay unobserved all the rest of the winter. Even this was a pleasant change after having been tossed about and trodden under foot so long; but in its fall its shrivelled brown skin had cracked, and the acorn thought—"This is a sad disaster. How ever am I to grow into an oak when I am so crushed and cracked that scarcely any one would recognize me for an acorn? When will my training begin?"
All the winter the rain pattered on it, and sank it deeper and deeper under the dead leaves and under the earth-clods, until all its acorn beauty was marred and crushed out of it, and it fell asleep in the dark, under the cold, damp earth; and the snows came and folded it in under their white eider-down pillows. At last, the warm touch, that comes to all sleeping nature in the spring, came softly on it, and it awoke.
"What a pity," it said, "I should have lost so much time by falling asleep! I can scarcely make out what I am like, or where I am. What a sad waste of time! It is clear no one can go on with his education in sleep. When will my training begin?"
With these thoughts, it stretched out two little green things on each side of it, which felt like wings; and tried to peep out of its hole, and, to its delight, it succeeded, and, with a few more efforts, even contrived to keep its head steadily above ground, and look around it.
"There is my father, the old oak," it said. "He looks quite green again. But I am a long way off from him, and how very small and close to the ground! When shall I begin to be like him?"
But meantime it was very happy. It felt so full of life, although so small; and the sun shone so graciously on it, and all the showers and dews seemed so full of kindly desires to help and nourish it; and more and more little green leaves expanded from its sides, and more and more little busy roots shot down into the earth; and the leaves breathed and drank in the sunshine, and the roots were great chemists and cooks, and concocted a perpetual feast for it out of the earth and stones. But it thought sometimes, "This is all exceedingly pleasant, and I am very happy; but, of course, this is not education; it is only enjoying myself. When will my training begin?"
The next spring the early frosts had much more power over it, in its detached, exposed situation, than over the saplings in the shelter of the forest, and it saw the trees in the wood growing green, and tempting the song-birds beneath their leafy tents, whilst the sap still flowed feebly upward through its tiny cells, and its twigs and leaf-buds were still brown and hard.
"This must be a great hindrance to me," it thought—"this, no doubt, will retard my education considerably. What a pity I stand here so detached and unprotected! When will my training begin?"
But in the late spring came some days of bitter east wind and black frost, and it saw the more forward leaves in the wood turn pale and shrivel before they unfolded, and then fall off, nipped and lifeless, to join the old dead leaves of the past autumn, whilst its own little buds lay safe within their hard and glossy casings, protected by one enemy against a worse. And when the east wind and the black frosts were gone, the little sapling shot up freely. In that summer, and the next, and the next, it made great progress; but in the fourth autumn a great disappointment awaited it. The owner of the park in which it grew came by, and stood beside it, and said to his forester,—
"That sapling is worth preserving, it is so vigorous and healthy; and, standing in this detached position, it will break the line of the wood, and look well from my house. We will watch it, and set a fence around it to guard it from the cattle. But it has thrown out a false leader. Take your knife and cut this straggling shoot away, and next year, I have no doubt, it will grow well."