I trust, my boy, that while you admire the order and adaptation, you will acknowledge Him whose wisdom planned the whole, whose power performed it, and whose goodness makes it serve the happiness of His creatures.
A few days after the last conversation, Willie went with his father into the Bush among the mountains. The way was long, and the track was rough, but various things occurred to make the journey pleasant. The Laughing Jackass gave the boy a merry greeting, a snake peeped at him slyly among the long grass, and then brushed off quickly to its hole. A Porcupine raised up its quills as he passed, and then trotted off to the scrub. But the trees,—the trees! How tall they were! How thick they were! With the help of their handkerchiefs, Willie and his father measured the girth of some, and found them thirty, forty, and even fifty feet round. Most of the Stringybark and Gum trees ran up straight as a dart, fit to thrust into some monster ship for a mast. Then the sweet-scented shrubs on every side, the green Myrtle, the pyramidal and beautiful Sassafras, and many others, seized upon the boy’s imagination, until he came to a place that made him stare, and then caper about like a Black fellow at a corrobory. What could it be?
A break in the tangled brush underwood had given him a peep down into a valley that seemed prettier than anything he had read of in a fairy tale. There was no rough rock, but a floor of soft moss. The most musical of rippling creeks trickled along the vale. No other sound was heard, for the very birds seemed afraid to disturb with their joyous notes the silence that dwelt there. There were no Gums, no Wattles, rising from this moss bed. Instead of these, Willie saw a lot of very odd looking trees. They were not very tall, for they rarely rose above 12 or 15 feet. The bark was unlike anything seen elsewhere. There were no branches, but at the top of the straight stem were several branch-like leaves, 8, 10, and 12 feet long, with such a graceful bend towards the valley. At the top of the stem, rising up from the place where the leaves sprang out, was a curious curling piece, with little shoots. The valley was full of these wonderful vegetable festooned pillars.
Oh! Father! father! cried the boy, what are those beautiful trees down there? I never saw any like them before.
They are Fern trees, my lad. Walk over and look closely at them.
Willie trod upon the soft carpet, and thought it damp, as well as soft. The air, too, was so close, and felt so cold and raw, that he lost half his pleasure already. He could not help saying so to his father.
Ah, my boy, said he, you are not the first to find nice things having something disagreeable about them when approaching nearer to them. Remember, that while roses have thorns, pleasures will have their drawbacks.
Yes, I know I am often very tired after a pretty ramble, and rather queer after a pasty.
True enough; there is only one place where happiness brings neither fatigue nor surfeit. But let us see what is the difference between one of these Fern trees and one of your old companions, a Gum tree.