it all happened long, long ago. there were no towns then with houses and streets, and church steeples domineering over everything. there were no schools, for there were not many boys, and those that there were learnt from their father to shoot with the bow and arrow, to hunt the stag in his covert, to kill the bear in order to make clothes out of his skin, and to rub two pieces of wood together till they caught fire. when they knew this perfectly, they had finished their education. there were no railways either, and no cultivated fields, no ships on the sea, no books, for there was nobody who could read them.
there was scarcely anything except trees. but trees there were in plenty. they stood everywhere from coast to coast; they saw themselves reflected in all the rivers and lakes, and stretched their mighty boughs up towards heaven. they leaned out over the shore, dipped their boughs in the black fen water, and from the high hills looked out proudly over the land.
they all knew each other, for they belonged to a great family, and were proud of it.
"we are all oak trees," they said. "we own the land, and rule over it."
and they were right. there were only a few human beings there in those days, and those that there were were nothing better than wild animals. the bear, the wolf, and the fox went out hunting, while the stag grazed by the edge of the fen. the field-mouse sat outside his hole and ate acorns, and the beaver built his artistic houses by the river banks.
one day the bear came trudging along and lay down at full breadth under a great oak tree.
"are you there again, you robber?" said the oak, and shook a lot of withered leaves down over him.
"you should not squander your leaves, my old friend," said the bear, licking his paws. "that is all the shade you can give against the sun."
"if you are not pleased with me, you can go," answered the oak proudly. "i am lord in the land, and whatever way you look you find my brothers and nothing else."
"true," muttered the bear. "that is just what is so sickening. i have been for a little tour abroad, i may tell you, and am just a little bit spoilt. it was in a land down towards the south—there i took a nap under the beech trees. they are tall, slim trees, not crooked old things like you. and their tops are so dense that the sunbeams cannot creep through them. it was a real pleasure there to take a midday nap, i assure you."
"beech trees?" said the oak inquisitively. "what are they?"
"you might well wish you were half as pretty as a beech tree," said the bear. "but i don't want to chatter any more with you just now. i have had to trot a mile on account of a confounded hunter who struck me on one of my hind legs with an arrow. now i should like to have a sleep, and perhaps you will be kind enough to leave me at peace, since you cannot give me shade."
the bear stretched himself out and closed his eyes; but he got no sleep that time, for the other trees had heard his story, and they began chattering and talking and rustling their leaves in a way never known in the wood before.
"what on earth can those trees be?" said one of them.
"it is, of course, a mere story; the bear wishes to impose upon us," said the other.
"what kind of trees can they be whose leaves sit so close together that the sunbeams cannot creep between them?" asked a little oak, who was listening to what the big ones were talking about.
but by his side stood an old gnarled tree, who gave the little oak a clout on the head with one of his lowest boughs.
"hold your tongue," he said, "and don't talk till you have something to talk about. you need none of you believe a word of the bear's nonsense. i am much taller than you, and i can see far out over the wood. but so far as ever i can see, there is nothing but oak trees."
the little oak was shamefaced, and held his tongue; and the other big trees spoke to one another in low whispers, for they had great respect for the old one.
but the bear got up and rubbed his eyes. "now you have disturbed my midday nap," he growled angrily, "and i declare that i will have my revenge. when i come back i will bring some beech nuts with me, and i vow you will all turn yellow with jealousy when you see how pretty the new trees are."
then he made off. but the oaks talked the whole day long one to another about the funny trees he had told them about.
"if they come, i will kill them," said the little oak tree, but directly afterwards he got one on the head from the old oak.
"if they come, you shall treat them politely, you young dog," said he. "but they will not come."
but in this the old oak was wrong, for they did come.
towards autumn the bear came back and lay down under the old oak.
"my friends down there wish me to present their compliments," he said, and he picked some funny things out of his shaggy coat. "here you may see what i have for you."
"what is it?" asked the oak.
"that is beech," answered the bear—"the beech nuts which i promised you."
then he trampled them into the ground and prepared to go back.
"it is a pity i cannot stay and see how angry you will be," he growled, "but those confounded human beings have begun to press one so hard. the day before yesterday they killed my wife and one of my brothers, and i must see about finding a place where i can live in peace. there is scarcely a spot left where a self-respecting bear can stay. good-bye, you old, gnarled oak trees!"
when the bear had shambled off, the trees looked at one another anxiously.
"let us see what comes of it," said the old oak.
and after this they composed themselves to rest. the winter came and tore all their leaves off them, the snow lay high over the whole land, and every tree stood deep in his own thoughts and dreamt of the spring.
and when the spring came the grass stood green, and the birds began singing where they left off last. the flowers came up in multitudes from the earth, and everything looked fresh and gay.
the oak trees alone stood with leafless boughs.
"it is the most dignified thing to come last!" they said one to another. "the kings of the wood do not come till the whole company is assembled."
but at last they came. all the leaves burst forth from the swollen buds, and the trees looked at one another and complimented one another on their beauty. the little oak had grown ever so much. he was very proud of it, and he thought that he had now the right to join in the conversation.
"nothing has come yet of the bear's beech trees," he said jeeringly, at the same time glancing anxiously up at the old oak, who used to give him one on the head.
the old oak heard what he said very plainly, and the other trees also; but they said nothing. not one of them had forgotten what the bear had told them, and every morning when the sun came out they peeped down to look for the beeches. they were really a little uneasy, but they were too proud to talk about it.
and one day the little shoots did at last burst forth from the earth. the sun shone on them, and the rain fell on them, so it was not long before they grew tall.
"oh, how pretty they are!" said the great oak, and stooped his crooked boughs still more, so that they could get a good view of them.
"you are welcome among us," said the old oak, and graciously inclined his head to them. "you shall be my foster-children, and be treated just as well as my own."
"thanks," said the little beeches, and they said no more.
but the little oak could not bear the strange trees. "it is dreadful the way you shoot up into the air," he said in vexation. "you are already half as tall as i am. but i beg you to take notice that i am much older, and of good family besides."
the beeches laughed with their little, tiny green leaves, but said nothing.
"shall i bend my branches a little aside so that the sun can shine better on you?" the old tree asked politely.
"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?"
"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."
and the fox rolled on the ground at the foot of the beech trees and got his fur full of the prickly fruits, and ran with them far out into the country. the bear did the same, and grinned into the bargain at the old oak while he lay and rested in the shadow of the beeches. the field-mouse was beside himself with joy over his new food, and thought that beech nuts tasted much nicer than acorns. all around new little beech trees shot up, which grew just as fast as their parents, and looked as green and as happy as if they did not know what an uneasy conscience was.
but the old oak gazed sadly out over the wood. the light-green beech leaves were peeping out everywhere, and the oaks were sighing and bewailing their distress to one another.
"they are taking our strength out of us," they said, and shook as much as the beeches around would let them. "the land is ours no longer."
one bough died after another, and the storm broke them off and cast them on the ground. the old oak had now only a few leaves left at the very top.
"the end is near," he said gravely.
by this time there were many more human beings in the land than there were before, and they made haste to hew down the oaks while there were still some remaining.
"oak timber is better than beech timber," they said.
"at last we get a little appreciation," said the old oak, "but we have to pay for it with our lives."
then he said to the beech trees,—
"what was i thinking of when i helped you on in your young days? what an old stupid i was! before that, we oak trees were lords in the land; and now every year i see my brothers around me perishing in the fight against you. it will soon be all over with me, and not one of my acorns has sprouted under your shade. but before i die i should like to know the name you give to such conduct."
"that will not take long to say, old friend," answered the beeches. "we call it competition, and that is not any discovery of our own. it is competition which rules the world."
"i do not know these foreign words of yours," said the oak. "i call it mean ingratitude." and then he died.
