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    Stories in Trees - Illustrated by Jewel Morrison
    Stories in Trees - Illustrated by Jewel Morrison
    Stories in Trees - Illustrated by Jewel Morrison
    Ebook149 pages1 hour

    Stories in Trees - Illustrated by Jewel Morrison

    By Mary I. Curtis and Jewel Morrison

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    About this ebook

    Pook Press celebrates the great Golden Age of Illustration in children's literature. Many of the earliest children's books, particularly those dating back to the 1850s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Pook Press are working to republish these classic works in affordable, high quality, colour editions, using the original text and artwork so these works can delight another generation of children.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRead Books Ltd.
    Release dateApr 16, 2013
    ISBN9781473386501
    Stories in Trees - Illustrated by Jewel Morrison

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      Stories in Trees - Illustrated by Jewel Morrison - Mary I. Curtis

      SPIRITS IN TREES

      If you like stories, girls and boys, you ought to know the stories of the trees. The different kinds of trees have their own stories, and these stories are so interesting that they have been told and retold for hundreds of years, and everybody, all over the world, has wanted to hear them.

      The Greeks and Romans, who lived long ago, believed that a beautiful spirit called a dryad lived in every tree. This dryad was born with the tree and died with it. As long as the tree lived the dryad had a lovely time. She played with other dryads in the forest, and sang songs from the branches of her leafy home. If any one should stop, on a warm summer day, to rest in the cool shade of the woods he might, perhaps, see a dryad, and she would come and talk to him in a sweet, rustling, little voice that sounded like a soft breeze stirring the leaves of the forest trees.

      But no dryad wanted to be caught. She would always keep just out of reach, and if anybody tried to touch her—pff!—she would vanish as completely as the gas from a punctured toy balloon.

      From believing that spirits lived in trees, people came to have all sorts of strange ideas about the trees themselves. They even worshipped special trees which, they imagined, belonged to certain of their gods. No one would have dared to injure any of these sacred trees, and to have cut down one of them would have been a fearful crime.

      Although, in these days, we are very matter-of-fact, there are places where people still believe in tree spirits; and in some parts of Austria the old peasants always beg the pardon of a tree before they cut it down.

      In Bulgaria, if a peasant has a fruit tree that will not bear fruit, he will try to frighten the lazy tree into doing better. On Christmas Eve he will go out with an ax and threaten to cut down the tree. Another man will go with him, and when the peasant raises his ax to strike the tree the other man will say:

      Oh, don’t cut down this tree; I am sure it will soon bear fruit.

      Three times the peasant will raise his ax, and three times his friend will beg him to spare the life of the tree. Then they will go away; and they believe that the tree, fearing no mercy will be shown next time, will bear fruit in the future.

      Even in our country there are traces of old spirit superstitions. The trick of finding a hidden spring of water by walking back and forth over the ground holding a forked twig of hazel wood in one’s hands, has come down to us from the days when people believed that the spirit in the hazel wood was showing where the water lay hidden under the earth. For if the person holding the forked twig should pass above an underground spring, the twig in his hands would immediately twist itself around with great force.

      You see, even nowadays, we like to play at things that people used to think were true in those days, long ago, when every one believed that spirits lived in trees.

      The fact that trees possess an almost uncanny ability to look out for themselves in a world that fairly bristles with enemies, almost suggests the question, ‘Do trees think?’

      THE HOUSE OF THE TREES

      Ope your doors and take me in,

      Spirit of the wood,

      Wash me clean of dust and din,

      Clothe me in your mood.

      Take me from the noisy light

      To the sunless peace,

      Where at mid-day standeth Night

      Singing Toil’s release.

      All you dusky twilight stores

      To my senses give;

      Take me in and lock the doors,

      Show me how to live.

      Lift your leafy roof for me,

      Part your yielding walls:

      Let me wander lingeringly

      Through your scented halls.

      Ope your doors and take me in,

      Spirit of the wood;

      Take me—make me next of kin

      To your leafy brood.

      —ETHELWYN WETHERALD

      WHAT TREES DO FOR US

      Have you ever thought what a dreadful thing it would be to have no trees in the world? In the first place, how it would look! Just suppose there were no beautiful trees to put out their fresh, green leaves in the early spring, and no trees to spread their thick, leafy branches over us on hot, sunny days! If we had no trees we should have no glorious, autumn foliage of red and gold and bronze to make our autumn walks and drives a joy, and we should have no Christmas trees, either.

      But the beauty of the trees is only a small part of what they mean to us. They mean health, too. Every year, thousands of people find rest and strength and recreation among the woods of our country, and many invalids are sent to the pine forests of Colorado and the Adirondacks to grow well in the invigorating air that is found where pines and balsams grow. The trees purify the air by absorbing the poisonous gases breathed out by men and animals, and by giving out oxygen, which men and animals must have in order to live. Some large pine forests have been planted in the southern part of France. Before these pine trees were set out, the country there was a flat unhealthful place. Today, this piece of ground is covered with pine forests and is used as a health resort.

      In the far-off land of Arabia the people, long ago, used to believe that whenever a child was born, a spirit, or fairy, would appear bringing gifts to the baby. Sometimes the spirit brought a good many gifts, such as beauty or cleverness or future greatness. Sometimes it did not bring so many; but there was always one gift for every child. This was a little package so tightly sealed that no one could open it, and in the package was hidden the number of days that the child would have to live upon the earth. Nothing can alter the number, the spirit used to tell the baby, except that for every day you spend working or playing in the forest one more day will be added to your life.

      This was the way the Arabs had of saying that living outdoors would make the child healthier, and so add to the length of its life.

      Forests also help to make the climate more moderate. In the summer you will find that it is always cooler in the forest than it is outside, and in the winter it is warmer, because on hot summer days the leaves and twigs and branches give off a great deal of cooling moisture, while in winter the trees break the force of the cold, piercing winds. Even a few trees can give shelter from the cold and storms. All farmers know this, and if no trees are growing along the northern boundaries of their lands they usually plant some to protect themselves and their cattle from the icy gales of winter.

      And then what would become of our rivers if we had no trees? For you know that all of our great rivers have their sources in the forests. If you go into the woods you will notice right away the difference between the earth there and the earth of a bare piece of ground. The growth of the tree roots breaks up the soil and keeps it from hardening, and the shade of the trees keeps the sun from drying the earth.

      The floor of the forest is made of ferns and springy moss and little growing plants and fallen leaves. If you dig down beneath this cover you will find millions and millions of little spreading roots holding the moist particles of earth together like a great sponge. And this forest earth acts just like a sponge, too, for all the rain that falls is soaked up by the spongy earth, and all the snow that melts sinks into it and comes bubbling up, later on, in clear springs and little brooks from which the great rivers of the Hudson and the Mississippi and the Ohio and the Colorado and others all begin. The rainfall that has been held back by these roots in the great, spongy, forest reservoir comes seeping out into a steady supply of water for rivers, for cities, and for every one.

      What would happen if there were no trees? You have seen the water from a heavy rainstorm rushing down an open road, or a stream of water washing down a city street carrying chips and

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