Days and weeks came and went. The Pine waited impatiently, and rustled all its branches in the autumn winds, and let fall its brown needles, until a thick carpet of them lay about its trunk on the mossy ground. And out from the moss peeped a few rough green leaves. The Pine noticed that they were shivering in the November wind, and pityingly dropped a few more needles around them.
When the storms of winter came, it stretched its broad, evergreen boughs above the leaves, and sheltered them with its shaggy trunk.
The long, cold months passed at last, and it was spring. Still the Pine grieved and sighed because it could be of no use in the world.
To be sure it had protected the timid, furry leaves so well that they had lived, and now bore in their midst a cluster of small pink blossoms.
Just before sunset a man with coarse, roughened features and a bad look in his face, came and threw himself down on the ground beneath the Pine. His fists were clenched, for he was very angry about something, and, although the Pine never knew it, he was being tempted to a terrible crime.
As the man lay there thinking evil thoughts, and almost making up his mind to the wicked deed, he caught a breath of fragrance which made him for a moment forget his anger.
It reminded him of home, of his boyhood, of a wee sister with blue eyes and waving golden hair, with whom he used to wander into the pine-woods near the old farmhouse and gather flowers.
He looked about him, and his eye fell upon the pink flowers.
“Mayflowers!” he murmured half-aloud. And stretching out his hand he gathered them and held their pure, sweet faces up to his own.
The fierce look left his eyes, and a strange moisture came instead. His lips quivered. He was thinking now of his mother. She had left her children for a far country while they were still tiny creatures. But he could remember her face as she lay in the darkened room, resting so peacefully.