Mother West Wind's ChildrenBurgess, Thornton W. (Thornton Waldo)
General
Mother West Wind's Children
Burgess, Thornton W. (Thornton Waldo)
Animals -- Juvenile fiction; Children's stories, American
Colder grew the weather and colder. Johnny Chuck tucked himself away
to sleep all winter. Grandfather Frog went deep, deep down in the mud,
not to come out again until spring. By and by the little yellow
flowers dropped off the little bush, just as the other little flowers
in spring had dropped off the other bushes. But they left behind them
tiny little packages, one for every little flower that had been on the
bush. All winter long these little packages clung to the little bush.
In the spring when the little leaves burst forth in all the little
bushes, these little packages on the little bush of which I am telling
you grew and grew and grew. While the other little bushes had a lot of
little flowers as they had had the year before, these little brown
packages on the little bush of which I am telling you kept on growing.
And they comforted the little bush because it felt that it really had
something worth while.
All the summer long the little brown packages grew and grew until they
looked like little nuts. When the fall came again and all the little
leaves dropped off all the little bushes, and the little bush of which
I am telling you was covered with another lot of little yellow flowers
and was very happy, then these little brown nuts, one bright autumn
day, suddenly popped open! And out of each one flew two brown shiny
little seeds. You never saw such a popping and a snapping and a
jumping! Pop! pop! snap! snap! hippetty hop! they went, faster than
the corn pops in the corn popper. Reddy Fox, who always is suspicious,
thought some one was shooting at him. Down on the ground fell the
little brown shining seeds and tucked themselves into the warm earth
under the warm leaves, there to stay all winter long.
And when the third spring came with all its little birds and all its
little flowers and the warm sunshine, every one of these little brown
seeds which had tucked themselves into the warm earth, burst its little
brown skin, and up into the sunshine came a little green plant, which
would grow and grow and grow, and by and by become just like the little
bush I am telling you about.
When the little bush looked down and saw all these little green
children popping out of the ground, it was very happy indeed, for it
knew that it would no longer be lonely. It no longer felt bad when all
the other bushes were covered with flowers, for it knew that by and by
when all the other little bushes had lost all their leaves and all
their flowers, then would come its turn, and it knew that for a whole
year its little brown children would be held safe on its branches.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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