“But I am unhurt,” remonstrated the ivy; “and I shall bind up your wounds and nurse you back to health and vigor.”
And so it was that, although the oak tree was ever afterwards a riven and broken thing, the ivy concealed the scars upon his shattered form and covered his wounds all over with her soft foliage.
“I had hoped,” she said, “to grow up to thy height, to live with thee among the clouds, and to hear the solemn voices thou didst hear.”
But the old oak tree said, “Nay, nay, I love thee better as thou art, for with thy beauty and thy love thou comfortest mine age.”
Then would the ivy tell quaint stories to the oak tree,—stories she had learned from the crickets, the bees, the butterflies, and the mice when she was a humble little vine and played at the foot of the majestic oak tree towering in the greenwood. And these simple tales pleased the old and riven oak tree; they were not as heroic as the tales the wind, the clouds, and the stars told, but they were far sweeter, for they were tales of contentment, of humility, of love. So the old age of the oak tree was grander than his youth.
And all who went through the greenwood paused to behold and admire the beauty of the oak tree then; for about his scarred and broken trunk the gentle vine had so entwined her graceful tendrils and spread her fair foliage, that one saw not the havoc of the years nor the ruin of the tempest, but only the glory of the oak tree’s age, which was the ivy’s love and ministering.—Eugene Field.
From “A Little Book of Profitable Tales.” Copyright, 1889, by Eugene Field. Published by Charles Scribner’s Sons.
HARVEST SONG
The God of harvest praise;
In loud Thanksgiving raise
Hand, heart, and voice.
The valleys laugh and sing,
Forests and mountains ring,
The plains their tribute bring,
The streams rejoice.