“I waved my branches to salute him, and from far away he could see me swaying and bowing. No tempest ever shook me so hard. I was very sad and not ashamed to weep.” “Dear little Fiam; and have you ever seen him again?” “Yes, listen. Exactly a year later, the stork who always stopped to rest on my branch passed by again. “‘How are things going?’ I asked him. “‘I am in a hurry,’ he answered, scratching his head. [Illustration: “YOU WILL BE ADORED”] “‘Oh, oh!’ I observed. ‘Arrows in the air?’ “‘Not yet,’ he exclaimed, ‘but there are armed men near here. I am obliged to look after some business. Good-bye,’ and he flew away. “There were really men in arms in the vicinity. Imagine my surprise when I saw Prince Funato appear at the head of his soldiers and a great number of servants all dressed in holiday clothes. They surrounded me, they saluted me, they knelt about me, they burned incense to me under my branches. They had brought food and saki, which is their wine made of rice. For two days they had a great festival. Beautiful songs were sung in my honor by their musicians. They poured saki on my trunk. I drank so much that I wanted to dance, and to tell the truth, if I could have walked I am afraid I should have reeled. Fortunately I was a tree and no one discovered my condition. On the third day they returned to the valley.” [Illustration: The Sad Story of the Transformation] CHAPTER VI THE SAD STORY OF THE TRANSFORMATION I soon learned to feel so much affection and admiration for Fiam that even now I never light a match without thinking of him. “Was that the end?” I asked him. “No; every year at that date in May there was a festival in the wood. You see, I had become a god to these people; they adored me. But as the years passed the festival grew very sad. The men became old. The army dwindled away. The musicians lost their voices, and each year the songs were slower and feebler. Prince Funato’s hair turned white, then his back was bent, then he came up the mountain leaning on a cane, then he was carried on a litter, and then he came no more. “The first year his followers returned without him; they wept as they burned incense under my boughs. Funato was dead. From that time the pilgrimage was more and more melancholy. “Fifty years after the battle there were left only one musician, two servants and nine soldiers. At the end of another year, that day in May, only one man came. He looked as if he were a hundred years old. He could hardly drag himself along. He laid his wrinkled forehead against me and murmured: “‘Honorable Willow, we shall never meet again.’ “After that I saw no one; I was forgotten. How could I tell what men were doing in the valley? But I am tiring you with all these old memories.” “Fiam!” I exclaimed, after a few minutes of silence, “I not only love you, but respect you. You have done some beautiful things in your life.” “But think what I have come to be—a match!” “Tell me how it happened.”