Fourth Reader: The Alexandra Readers

by W. A. McIntyre; John Dearness; John C. Saul

Eugene Field

“Oho!” he cried, laughing boisterously but good-naturedly,—“oho! so you love me, do you, little vine? Very well then; play about my feet, and I shall keep the storms from you and shall tell you pretty stories about the clouds, the birds, and the stars.”

The ivy marvelled greatly at the strange stories the oak tree told; they were stories the oak tree heard from the wind that loitered about his lofty head and whispered to the leaves of his topmost branches. Sometimes the story was about the great ocean in the east, sometimes of the broad prairies in the west, sometimes of the ice king who lived in the north, sometimes of the flower queen who dwelt in the south. Then, too, the moon told a story to the oak tree every night,—or at least every night that she came to the greenwood, which was very often, for the greenwood is a very charming spot, as we all know. And the oak tree repeated to the ivy every story the moon told and every song the stars sang.

“Pray, what are the winds saying now?” or “What song is that I hear?” the ivy would ask; and then the oak tree would repeat the story or the song, and the ivy would listen in great wonderment.

Whenever the storms came, the oak tree cried to the little ivy: “Cling close to me, and no harm shall befall thee! See how strong I am; the tempest does not so much as stir me—I mock its fury!”

Then, seeing how strong and brave he was, the ivy hugged him closely; his brown, rugged breast protected her from every harm, and she was secure.

The years went by; how quickly they flew,—spring, summer, winter, and then again spring, summer, winter,—ah, life is short in the greenwood, as elsewhere! And now the ivy was no longer a weakly little vine to excite the pity of the passer-by. Her thousand beautiful arms had twined hither and thither about the oak tree, covering his brown and knotted trunk, shooting forth a bright, delicious foliage, and stretching far up among his lower branches.

The oak tree was always good and gentle to the ivy. “There is a storm coming over the hills,” he would say. “The east wind tells me so; the swallows fly low in the air. Cling close to me, and no harm shall befall thee.”

Then the ivy would cling more closely to the oak tree, and no harm came to her.

Although the ivy was the most luxuriant vine in all the greenwood, the oak tree regarded her still as the tender little thing he had laughingly called to his feet that spring day many years before,—the same little ivy he had told about the stars, the clouds, and the birds. And just as patiently as in those days, he now repeated other tales the winds whispered to his topmost boughs,—tales of the ocean in the east, the prairies in the west, the ice king in the north, and the flower queen in the south. And the ivy heard him tell these wondrous things, and she never wearied with the listening.