"
There was a terrible quaking and noise as the old tree tried to rise
from its recumbent position. The sun's rays were fast parching its roots,
causing sharp pains to shoot through its branches.
"Oh, dear!" said the tree. "I hope I shall be able to get on my feet
soon, else people will be laughing at me for lying here so helpless."
The golden sun went down behind the hills. Its rays could not gild
the top of its branches now, and the tree missed the benediction of its
parting rays. A feeling akin to homesickness came over it, and a longing,
as the dews of evening came, to be once more rooted to the earth.
A wild wind sang a dirge all through the night, and ceased not till day
darted over the hills. It was not very pleasant for the old tree to hear
the children's regrets and words of grief as they came around it in the
morning to play and sit as usual under its pleasant shade. It had hoped
to have been far away by dawn, and thus have escaped the sound of their
voices.
"I'll wait till they are gone, and then I must be off," said the tree
softly.
"Papa will cut it all up into wood, I know," said the youngest of the
group, a bright, three-year-old boy.
"I am going to have a piece of one of the boughs to make a cane of,"
said another.
"And oh, dear me!" sighed little blue-eyed May. "I can't have any
more autumn leaves to make pretty wreaths of for mamma."
Poor old tree! how it had mistaken its mission and its relation to the
earth! So it is with people who lament the position in which Providence
has placed them.
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