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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