Then the Oak's lowest branch died, and he began to be seriously alarmed. "You are pretty things," he said, "if this is the way you reward me for my hospitality. When you were little I let you grow at my feet, and sheltered you against the storm, I let the sun shine on you as much as ever he would, and I treated you as if you were my own children. And in return for all this you stifle me."
"Stuff and nonsense!" said the Beeches. So they put forth flowers and fruit, and when the fruit was ripe the Wind shook the boughs and scattered it round far and wide.
"You are quick people like me," said the Wind. "I like you for it, and am glad to do you a good turn." And the Fox rolled on the ground at the foot of the Beech Trees and got his fur full of the prickly fruits, and ran with them far out into the country. The Bear did the same, and grinned into the bargain at the Old Oak while he lay and rested in the shadow of the Beeches. The Field Mouse was beside himself with joy over his new food, and thought that Beech nuts tasted much nicer than acorns. All round new little Beech Trees shot up, which grew just as fast as their parents, and looked as green and as happy as if they did not know what an uneasy conscience was.
But the Old Oak gazed sadly out over the wood. The light-green Beech leaves were peeping out everywhere, and the Oaks were sighing and bewailing their distress to one another. "They are taking our strength out of us," they said, and shook as much as the Beeches around would let them. "The land is ours no longer." One bough died after another, and the Storm broke them off and cast them on the ground. The Old Oak had now only a few leaves left at the very top. "The end is near," he said gravely.
By this time there were many more human beings in the land than there were before, and they made haste to hew down the Oaks while there were still some remaining.
"Oak timber is better than Beech timber," they said.
"At last we get a little appreciation," said the old Oak, "but we have to pay for it with our lives."
Then he said to the Beech Trees,—"What was I thinking of when I helped you on in your young days? What an old stupid I was! Before that, we Oak Trees were lords in the land; and now every year I see my brothers around me perishing in the fight against you. It will soon be all over with me, and not one of my acorns has sprouted under your shade. But before I die I should like to know the name you give to such conduct."
"That will not take long to say, old friend," answered the Beeches. "We call it competition, and that is not any discovery of our own. It is competition which rules the world."
"I do not know these foreign words of yours," said the Oak. "I call it mean ingratitude." And then he died.