CHAPTER VIII
A RUNAWAY TREE
Snythergen gave a sigh of relief when the bear went away and was just about to step out and un-bark, when he heard voices.
“This is the tree we are to chop down!” Snythergen heard one of them say, and already the woodchopper was swinging his axe. Snythergen did not wait for the blow to land, but leaped into the air and was off as fast as his roots would carry him. To be sure, he was hampered by his leaves and his branches and his sheath bark skirt. Brushing none too gently against bushes and trees he trod on the toes of innumerable growing things. Apologizing with his bows to right and left, he did not pause even to see what damage he had done, nor did he know he had stepped heavily on the roots of an oak, or rubbed the shins of a birch. He knew only that two woodsmen were after him, threatening to chop him into kindling wood.
“Did you ever see such a rude tree?” cried a graceful elm suffering from a broken limb. “And it’s so untreelike to run away like that! Suppose the rest of us did likewise—what would become of the forest!”
“If he is restless, I don’t object to his walking about in a gentlemanly manner,” said the birch whose shins had been rubbed, “as long as he picks his steps carefully; but to go slamming through regardless of the rest of us is most inconsiderate!”
There was much bobbing of tree-tops and angry shaking of limbs in the direction the runaway tree had taken. But Snythergen might have saved himself running so far and so fast, had he taken the trouble to look around. For the hunters were not following but standing still, astonished at the spectacle of a tree racing through the forest at break-limb speed. In all the years they had lived in the woods never had they seen a runaway tree before.