ARBOR DA Y MANUAL. 1 3 1 



THE LAST DREAM OF THE OLD OAK TREE. 



A CHRISTMAS TALE. 



IN the forest high up on the steep shore, hard by the open sea-coast, stood a 

 very old oak tree. It was exactly three hundred and sixty-five years old, 

 but that long time was not more for the tree than just as many days would be 

 to us men. We wake by day and sleep through the night, and then we have 

 our dreams: it is different with the tree, which keeps awake through three 

 seasons of the year, and does not get its sleep till winter comes. Winter is its 

 time for rest, its night after the long day which is called spring, summer, and 

 autumn. 



On many a warm summer day the ephemera, the fly that lives but for a day, 

 had danced around his crown had lived, enjoyed, and felt happy; and then 

 rested for a moment in quiet bliss the tiny creature, on one of the great fresh 

 oak leaves ; and then the tree always said : 



" Poor little thing ! Your whole life is but a single day ! How very short ! 

 It's quite melancholy ! " 



"Melancholy! Why do you say that?" the ephemera would then always 

 reply. " It is wonderfully bright, warm, and beautiful all around me, and that 

 makes me rejoice ! " 



" But only one day and then it's all done ! " 



"Done ! " repeated the ephemera. "What's the meaning of done? Are you 

 done too ? " 



" No; I shall perhaps live for thousands of your days, and my day is whole 

 seasons long ! It's something so long, that you can't at all manage to reckon 

 it out." 



"No? then I don't understand you. You say you have thousands of my 

 days ; but I have thousands of moments, in which I can be merry and happy. 

 Does all the beauty of this world cease when you die? " 



Xo," replied the tree ; " it will certainly last much longer far longer than 

 I can possibly think." 



"Well, then, we have the same time, only that we reckon differently." 



And the ephemera danced and floated in the air, and rejoiced in her delicate 

 wings of gauze and velvet, and rejoiced in the balmy breezes laden with the 

 fragrance of meadows and of wild-roses and elder-flowers, of the garden hedges, 

 wild thyme, and mint, and daisies; the scent of these was all so strong that 

 the ephemera was almost intoxicated. The day was long and beautiful, full of 

 joy and of sweet feeling, and when the sun sank low the little fly felt very 

 agreeably tired of all its happfness and enjoyment. The delicate wings would 

 not earn- it any more, and quietly and slowly it glided down upon the soft 

 .grass-blade, nodded its head as well as it could nod, and went quietly to sleep 

 and was dead. 



" Poor little ephemera ! " said the oak. " That was a terribly short life ! " 



And on even- summer day the same dance was repeated, the same question 

 and answer, and the same sleep. The same thing was repeated through whole 

 generations of ephemera, all of them felt equally merry and equally happy. 



