Rhœcus[21]
FANNY E. COE
ong ago there lived a Grecian youth named Rhœcus. Just outside the city where Rhœcus dwelt was a wood. This wood was very old. Some said there were oaks in the forest that had been growing for a thousand years.
[21] Based upon the story of James Russell Lowell's poem of the same name.
One day Rhœcus was passing through the wood. Before him he saw a noble oak about to fall. He ran and propped its mossy trunk with great branches that he took from the ground.
As he was turning away, he heard a soft voice say, "Rhœcus." There beside the tree stood a beautiful dryad.
"I am the spirit of this tree," she said. "As long as it lives, I live. When it falls, I die. You, Rhœcus, have just saved my life. Ask what you will and it is yours."