WHITE BIRCH
Once upon a time there lived in a wood a brother and sister who had been forgotten by all the world. But this thing did not greatly grieve their hearts, because they themselves were all the world to each other: meeting or parting, they never forgot that. Nobody remained to tell them who they were; but she was “Little Sister,” and he was “Fair Brother,” and those were the only names they ever went by.
In their little wattled hut they would have been perfectly happy but for one thing which now and then they remembered and grieved over. Fair Brother was lame—not a foot could he put to the ground, nor take one step into the outside world. But he lay quiet on his bed of leaves, while Little Sister went out and in, bringing him food and drink, and the scent of flowers, and tales of the joy of earth and of the songs of birds.
One day she brought him a litter of withered birch-leaves to soften his bed and make it warmer for the approaching season of cold; and all the winter he lay on it, and sighed. Little Sister had never seen him so sad before.
In the spring, when the songs of the pairing birds began, his sorrow only grew greater. “Let me go out, let me go out,” he cried; “only a little way into the bright world before I die!” She kissed his feet, and took him up in her arms and carried him. But she could only go a very little way with her burden; presently she had to return and lay him down again on his bed of leaves.
“Have I seen all the bright world?” he asked. “Is it such a little place?”
To hide her sorrow from him, Little Sister ran out into the woods, and as she went, wondering how to comfort his grief, she could not help weeping.
All at once at the foot of a tree she saw the figure of a woman seated. It was strange, for she had never before seen anybody else in the wood but themselves. The woman said to her, “Why is it that you weep so?”
“The heart of Fair Brother is breaking,” replied Little Sister. “It is because of that that I am weeping.”