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The Old Willow-tree

and other stories by

CARL EWALD

Translated by A. Teixeira de Mattos

Drawings by Helen M. Jacobs & G. E. Lee

[Illustration]

  Thornton Butterworth Limited
  15 Bedford St Strand London. W. C. 2

_First published October, 1921._

_Copyright U.S.A., 1907, by Charles Scribner's Sons._




  THE
  ROYAL ROAD
  LIBRARY


  THE OLD WILLOW-TREE
  AND OTHER STORIES




THE ROYAL ROAD LIBRARY


  THE CARL EWALD BOOKS

  Translated by
  ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS

  1. TWO-LEGS
  2. THE OLD WILLOW TREE
  and other stories


  THE NETTA SYRETT BOOKS

  3. TOBY & THE ODD BEASTS
  4. RACHEL & THE SEVEN WONDERS


  THE W. H. KOEBEL BOOKS

  5. THE BUTTERFLIES' DAY

[Illustration: 'YOU HAVE DISTURBED MY AFTERNOON NAP']




FOR THE HONBLE. MRS. HENRY MCLAREN.

  DEAR CHRISTABEL,

From the first, your interest in Carl Ewald has been kindly, gracious
and insistent; as Michael Finsbury might have said, "you were his friend
through thick and thin;" and it is very much due to you (not to mention
Betty and Charles) that this volume has seen the light of day. Most of
the stories are new to this country; and I dedicate my translation to
you in all gratitude.

  A. T. DE M.

  CHELSEA, _23 September, 1921_.




[Illustration: List of Stories]


  CHAPTER I                                                        _Page_

  THE OLD WILLOW-TREE                                                 13

  CHAPTER II

  THE MISTLETOE                                                       47

  CHAPTER III

  THE LILAC-BUSH                                                      59

  CHAPTER IV

  THE BEECH AND THE OAK                                               69

  CHAPTER V

  THE WEEDS                                                           81

  CHAPTER VI

  THE ANEMONES                                                        89

  CHAPTER VII

  THE WOOD AND THE HEATH                                             101

  CHAPTER VIII

  SOMEWHERE IN THE WOOD                                              111

  CHAPTER IX

  THE COUSINS                                                        123




[Illustration: List of Pictures]


  'You have disturbed my afternoon nap'
  (_Coloured_)                                            _Frontispiece._

  'I want to pick some for myself!'
  (_Coloured_)                                                        40

  The old dog stood on his hind-legs and
  blinked with his blind eyes                                         50

  'You really ought not to be so wasteful
  with your leaves, old friend,' said
  the bear, licking his paws                                          70

  'Hide me! Save me!' (_Coloured_)                                    80

  'Fie, for shame!' they cried to the
  beech-leaves. 'It's you that are
  killing us'                                                         94

  'Good-bye,' said the maiden-pink                                   114

  There sat the mouse in the sugar-basin
  (_Coloured_)                                                       128




[Illustration: The Old Willow-tree]


I

There are many kinds of willows and they are so unlike that you would
hardly believe them to be relations.

There are some so small and wretched that they creep along the ground.
They live on the heath, or high up in the mountains, or in the cold
arctic regions. In the winter, they are quite hidden under the snow; in
the summer, they just poke up their noses above the tops of the heather.

There are people who shrink from notice because they are so badly off.
It is simply stupid to be ashamed of being poor; and the little
dwarf-willows are not a bit ashamed. But they know that the soil they
grow in is so poor that they can never attain the height of proper
trees. If they tried to shoot up and began to carry their heads like
their stately cousins the poplars, they would soon learn the difference.

For the poplars are their cousins. They are the stateliest of all the
willow-trees and they know it, as any one can see by looking at them
with half an eye. You only have to notice the way in which they hold
themselves erect to perceive it.

The beech and the oak and the birch and whatever the other trees are
called stick out one polite branch on this side and one polite branch on
that.

"May I beg you kindly to give me a little bit of sunshine?" says the
branch up in the air.

"Can I help you to a little bit of shadow?" says the branch down by the
ground.

But the poplars sing a very different tune. With them it is:

"Every branch straight up on high! Close up to the trunk with you!
There's nothing to stare at down below! Look above you! Heads up!...
March!"

And all the branches strut right up to the sky and the whole tree shoots
up, straight and proud as a pikestaff.

It's tiring. But it's elegant. And it pays. For has any one ever seen a
smarter tree than one of those real, regular poplars, as stiff as a tin
soldier and as tall as a steeple?

And, when the poplars stand along the road, in a long row on either
side, you feel very respectful as you walk between them and are not in
the least surprised when it appears that the avenue leads right up to a
fine country-house.

The dwarf-willows and the poplars belong to the same family. The first
are the commonest on the common side, the second are the smartest on the
smart side. Between them are a number of other willow-trees. There are
some whose leaves are like silver underneath and some whose leaves
quiver so mournfully in the warm summer wind that the poets write verses
about them. There are some whose branches droop so sorrowfully towards
the ground that people plant them on their graves and some whose
branches are so tough and flexible that people use them to weave baskets
of. There are some out of which you can carve yourself a grand flute, if
you know how. And then there are a heap about which there is nothing
very remarkable to tell.


2

The willow-tree in this story was just one of the middling sort. But he
had a destiny; and that is how he came to find his way into print.

His destiny began with this, that one of the proud poplars who stood in
the avenue leading to the manor-house was blown down in a terrible
storm. He snapped right down at his roots; the stump was dug up; and it
left a very ugly gap in the middle of the long row of trees. As soon as
spring came, therefore, the keeper brought a cutting and stuck it where
the old poplar used to stand, stamped down the ground firmly all around
it and nodded to it:

"Hurry, now, and shoot up," he said. "I know it's in your blood; and you
have only to look down the road to see good examples for you to follow
in growing."

Now the man thought it was a poplar he had planted. But it was only a
quite ordinary willow-twig, which he had taken by mistake, and, as time
passed and the cutting grew up, this came to light.

"What a monster!" said the keeper. "We must pull this up again."

"Let him be, now that he's there," said the squire.

For that happened to be his mood that day.

"Shall we put up with him?" asked the poplars along the road.

They whispered about it for a long time; and, as no one knew how to get
rid of him, they agreed to put up with him. After all, he belonged to
the family, though not to the smart side of it.

"But let me see you make an effort and grow as straight as you're able,"
said the poplar who stood nearest to him. "You have found your way into
much too fine a company, let me tell you. You would have done better
beside a village-pond than in the avenue of a manor. But now the scandal
is an accomplished fact and we must hush it up as best we may. The rest
of us will shoot up and grow a bit straighter and thinner still; and
then we'll hope that the quality will drive past without noticing you."

"I'll do my best," said the willow-tree.

In the fields close by, on a little hillock, stood an oak. On the
hillock also grew a charming wild rose. They both heard what the trees
of the avenue had said and the oak began to scoff at them:

"Fancy caring to stand out there in the road!" he said. "I suppose you
will want to be running up and down next, like those silly men and
women? It was unkind and thoughtless of your mother to sow you out
there. Trees ought to grow together in a wood, if they are not as
handsome and stately as I, who can stand alone."

"My mother didn't sow me at all," said the willow-tree.

"Oh, Lord preserve us!" said the oak. "So your mother didn't sow you at
all, didn't she? Perhaps the others weren't sown either? Perhaps you
just dropped down from the sky?"

"If you had eyes in your head, you would have seen that the keeper put
me here," said the willow. "I am a cutting."

And all along the road the poplars whispered to one another:

"We are cuttings... cuttings... cuttings..."

It was a real avenue and a real adventure.

"You managed that very well," said the poplar who stood nearest to the
willow-tree. "Only go on as you've begun and we will forgive you for not
being as smart as the rest of us."

"I'll do my best," replied the willow-tree.

The oak said nothing. He did not know what cuttings were, and did not
want to commit himself or make a blunder. But, later on, in the evening,
he whispered to the wild rose-bush:

"What was that rubbish he was talking about cuttings?"

"It's not rubbish at all," said the rose-bush. "It was right enough,
what the willow said. I myself came out of a seed, like you, and I
didn't see the keeper plant him either, for I happened to be busy with
my buds that day. But I have some smart cousins up in the garden at the
manor-house. They came out of cuttings. Their scent is so sweet, their
colours so bright and their blossoms so rich and full that one simply
can't believe it. But they get no seed."

[Illustration]

"What next!" said the oak.

"Yes, I, too, would rather be the wild rose I am," said the rose-bush.


3

Now years passed, as they are bound to pass.

Spring came and summer, autumn and winter. Rain came and snow came,
sunshine and storm, good days and bad. The birds flew out of the country
and flew back again, the flowers blossomed and withered, the trees burst
into leaf and cast their leaves again, when the time came.

The willow-cutting grew and grew quickly, after the manner of the
family. He was now quite a tree, with a thick trunk and a top with many
branches.

But there was no denying it: he was not a poplar. And his fellow-members
of the avenue were greatly displeased with him:

"Isn't it possible for you to grow taller in stature?" asked the
nearest poplar. "You ought never to have been here, but, once you've
joined the avenue through an accident, I should like to ask you to
stretch yourself up a bit."

"I'll do my best," answered the willow-tree.

"I fear your best isn't good enough," said the poplar. "You have no grip
at all to keep your branches in with. They hang quite slack on every
side, just as if you were a common beech or birch or oak or whatever the
ordinary trees are called."

"Do you call me ordinary, you windbag?" said the oak.

The poplar did not mind a jot what the oak said, but went on admonishing
the willow-tree:

"You should take example by the squire's wife," he said. "At first she
was no better than a common kitchen-maid. She used to scour the pots and
make up the fire and stir the milk when it boiled. I used often to see
her go down the avenue bare-armed and bare-headed, with a pail in her
hand and her skirts tucked back."

"So did we... so did we... so did we," whispered the poplars along the
avenue.

"Then the squire fell in love with her and made her his wife," said the
poplar. "Now she goes in silk, with a train to her dress and
ostrich-feathers on her head and gold slippers on her feet and long
gloves from Paris on her hands. She looks down from on high: only
yesterday she was driving along here in her smart turn-out with the four
bays."

"We saw her... we saw her... we saw her," whispered the poplars along
the avenue.

"She joined the avenue, do you see?" said the poplar. "She learnt to
hold herself erect and whisper; and now she whispers and holds herself
erect. I think you might profit by her example. After all, you belong
to the family, even though you are not one of the real poplars; so it
ought to be easier for you than her."

"I'll do my best," said the willow-tree.

But nothing came of it. His branches kept on growing out at the sides
and the whole tree was not more than half as tall as the lowest poplars.
For the rest, he was quite nice and comfortable-looking, but that's not
what counts in the smart world.

And the poplars grew more and more annoyed every day.

They themselves stood stiff and straight and strutted and gave no more
shade than their trunks were able to cast. But under the willow there
was quite a big shady place.

"He's ruining the whole avenue," said the nearest poplar.

"The whole avenue... the whole avenue... the whole avenue," whispered
the poplars.

Then, one regular sunny summer's day, the squire came walking along. He
took off his hat, wiped the perspiration from his forehead and sat down
in the shade of the willow:

[Illustration]

"Thank you for your shade, you good Willow-Tree," he said. "Those
confounded poplars stand there and strut and don't give as much shade as
the back of my hand. I think I'll cut them all down and plant willows in
their stead."

For that happened to be his mood that day.

"Did you hear the squire praise me?" said the willow-tree, when he had
gone.

"Goodness gracious!" said the nearest poplar. "Did we hear him? It's a
perfect scandal! He talked just like a common peasant. But, of course,
that comes of marrying a kitchen-maid. It's the truest thing that ever
was said, that birds of a feather fly together."

"Birds of a feather fly together... fly together... fly together...
together... together," whispered the poplars all along the avenue.

The oak on the little hillock in the fields twisted his crooked branches
with laughter. The wild rose, whose hips were already beginning to turn
red, nodded to the willow-tree:

"Every one has his position in life," she said. "We have ours and the
smart ones theirs. Now I wouldn't change with anybody."

"Still, one would like to give satisfaction in one's position," said the
willow-tree and sighed!


4

After the warm days came rain and drizzle and wind. The roads became
difficult because of the mud and slosh. Only in the avenue did it dry up
soon, however hard it had rained. For the poplars gave no shade, so the
sun was able to come at once as soon as the rain had ceased. And they
gave no shelter either, so the wind came with a rush and dried the
puddles.

[Illustration]

The squire came driving with his wife. When the carriage reached the
place where the willow stood, the wet mud splashed all over her new silk
dress.

"Ugh!" she said.

"What's all this nasty mess?" asked the squire.

The keeper, who was sitting on the box beside the coachman, pointed to
the willow-tree:

"It's that fellow there," he said. "He was planted by mistake and now he
has stood and grown big. He shelters the ground from the wind and shades
it from the sun, so there is always a big puddle under him, long after
the rest of the avenue is dry."

"Did you ever hear of such a thing?" said the squire. "And the look of
him, too! He spoils the whole of the beautiful, stately avenue. See and
poll him to-morrow, keeper. Off with the whole of his crown, do you
hear?"

For that happened to be his mood that day.

On the next day, they came and sawed the willow-tree down to a man's
height. Only the thick naked trunk remained. Not a leaf was-left, except
five that stood on a little twig down by the ground and really had no
business to be there at all. The whole of the splendid crown lay in the
ditch. The keeper chopped all the branches into pieces with his axe.

"Will they become cuttings?" asked the willow, disconsolately.

"They will become <DW19>s," replied the keeper and went on chopping to
the last stick.

"Then rather let me die at once," said the willow.

"For the present, you will stay where you are, till the winter is past,"
said the keeper. "When the snow lies thick and smooth all over the
roads, you can do good service as a warning-post against the ditch. What
will happen afterwards depends upon the squire."

"That