THE POOL & THE TREE
Once there was a tree standing in the middle of a vast wilderness, and beneath the shade of its branches was a little pool, over which they bent. The pool looked up at the tree and the tree looked down at the pool, and the two loved each other better than anything else on earth. And neither of them thought of anything else but each other, or cared who came and went in the world around them.
“But for you and the shade you give me I should have been dried up by the sun long ago,” said the pool.
“And if it were not for you and your shining face, I should never have seen myself, or have known what my boughs and blossoms were like,” answered the tree.
Every year when the leaves and flowers had died away from the branches of the tree, and the cold winter came, the little pool froze over and remained hard and silent till the spring; but directly the sun’s rays thawed it, it again sparkled and danced as the wind blew upon it, and it began to watch its beloved friend, to see the buds and leaves reappear, and together they counted the leaves and blossoms as they came forth.
One day there rode over the moorland a couple of travellers in search of rare plants and flowers. At first they did not look at the tree, but as they were hot and tired they got off their horses, and sat under the shade of the boughs, and talked of what they had been doing. “We have not found much,” said one gloomily; “it seemed scarcely worth while to come so far for so little.”
“One may hunt for many years before one finds anything very rare,” answered the elder traveller. “Well, we have not done, and who knows but what we may yet have some luck?” As he spoke he picked up one of the fallen leaves of the tree which lay beside him, and at once he sprang to his feet, and pulled down one of the branches to examine it. Then he called to his comrade to get up, and he also closely examined the leaves and blossoms, and they talked together eagerly, and at length declared that this was the best thing they had found in all their travels. But neither the pool nor the tree heeded them, for the pool lay looking lovingly up to the tree, and the tree gazed down at the clear water of the pool, and they wanted nothing more, and by and by the travellers mounted their horses and rode away.
The summer passed and the cold winds of autumn blew.
“Soon your leaves will drop and you will fall asleep for the winter, and we must bid each other good-bye,” said the pool.