"Many thanks," answered the beeches. "We can grow very nicely in the shade." And the whole summer passed by, and another summer after that, and still more summers. The beeches went on growing, and at last quite overtopped the little oak. "Keep your leaves to yourself," cried the oak; "you overshadow me, and that is what I can't endure. I must have plenty of sunshine. Take your leaves away or I perish." The beeches only laughed and went on growing. At last they closed together over the little oak's head, and then he died. "That was a horrid thing to do," a great oak called out, and shook his boughs in terror. But the old oak took his foster-children under his protection. "It serves him right," he said. "He is paid out for his boasting. I say it, though he is my own flesh and blood. But now you must behave yourselves, little beeches, or I will give you a clout on the head." Years went by, and the beeches went on growing, and they grew till they were tall young trees, which reached up among the branches of the old oak. "You begin to be rather pushing," the old tree said. "You should try to grow a little broader, and stop this shooting up into the air. Just see where your branches are soaring. Bend them properly, as you see us do. How will you be able to hold out when a regular storm comes? I assure you the wind gives one's head a good shaking. My old boughs have creaked many a time; and what do you think will become of the flimsy finery that you stick up in the air?" [Illustration: IN THE EARLY DAYS] "Every one has his own manner of growth, and we have ours," answered the young beeches. "This is the way it's done where we come from, and we are perhaps as good as you are." "That is not a polite way of speaking to an old tree with moss on his boughs," said the oak. "I begin to repent that I was so kind to you. If you have a spark of honourable feeling alive in you, be good enough to move your leaves a little to one side. There have been scarcely any buds on my lowest branches this year, you overshadow me so." "I don't quite understand how that concerns us," answered the beeches. "Every one has quite enough to do to look after himself. If he is equal to his work, and has luck, it turns out well for him; if not, he must be prepared to go to the wall. That is the way of the world." Then the oak's lowest branch died, and he began to be seriously alarmed. "You are pretty things," he said, "if this is the way you reward me for my hospitality. When you were little I let you grow at my feet, and sheltered you against the storm. I let the sun shine on you as much as ever he would, and I treated you as if you were my own children. And in return for all this you stifle me." "Stuff and nonsense!" said the beeches. So they put forth flowers and fruit, and when the fruit was ripe the wind shook the boughs and scattered it round far and wide. "You are quick people like me," said the wind. "I like you for it, and am glad to do you a good turn."