ARBOR DA V MANUAL. 
THE LAST DREAM OF THE OLD OAK TREE. 
A CHRISTMAS TALE. 
I N 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? ” 
“ No,” replied the tree ; “ it will certainty 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 o.f 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 happiness and enjoyment. The delicate wings would 
not carry 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 every 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. 
