The Old Gnome was soon at home in his cell; and very peaceful and cozy he found it. For several days he lay and swung in his hammock, growing comfortably drowsier and drowsier, too lazy even to gather berries for his food. He would soon sleep without waking; and by and by the moss and lichens would grow over him, too, and he would become a silent part of the Ancient Wood,--a little green mound such as you yourself may have seen many a time. But one day while he was snoring, with his wrinkled hands folded peacefully on his little chest, he heard a sound which made him open his eyes with a snap. It was the noise of an axe chopping. The Old Gnome sat up nervously and peered through his knot-hole window. A woodcutter was at work at the very next tree. "Hello!" said the Old Gnome, staring open-eyed; "That must be a _man_!" For this was the first mortal he had ever seen. Forgetting his drowsiness, he climbed up his staircase and peered closely at the creature from behind a curtain of fern. It was a strong young man, who wielded the axe heartily against the giant oak. The Old Gnome watched him curiously, admiring the lithe sweep of his arm and the rhythmic bend of his body. "They are goodly folk, these men!" he sighed, looking down on his own misshapen frame. "How can those evil brothers of mine care so much to vex and trouble them?" And he turned over and tried to go to sleep; but the sound of the axe kept knocking at something within him. Suddenly, the man made a mis-stroke. The axe slipped and came down upon his sandaled foot. With a cry he dropped the axe and fell to the ground, lying very still and white. "Ha!" frowned the Old Gnome, "the work of my brothers! Some one of them must have charmed that axe. But how strange he looks! Doubtless it is pain, which I do not know. Ah, pain must be something very sore!" And he felt a throb of pity. He hobbled to the spot where the woodman lay. Across his leg was a deep gash and on the moss were drops of crimson. The Old Gnome looked at them wonderingly, for the Gnomes are bloodless. "How beautiful the color!" he cried, and he touched his finger to one of the drops. Immediately a thrill went through his cold body, and he seemed to feel a fresh draught of life. New impulses came to him. "These men!" cried he, "how weak they are, after all! How greatly they need aid. I can help him now,--even I!" And his ugly little face wrinkled into the first grin it had known for centuries. He called to mind his long-forgotten skill in herbs, and hunted in the Ancient Wood for certain plants of healing. One he crushed and laid upon the wound to stanch the blood. Others he set out in the ground close under the young man's nose, so that they seemed to be growing naturally there.