So,
let go, little acorn, and fall to the ground, and some day you will
wake to a new and glorious life."
The acorn listened and believed, for was not the tree its mother? It
bade her good-bye, and, loosing its hold, dropped to the ground.
Then, indeed, it seemed as if the acorn were lost. That night a high
wind blew and covered it deep under a heap of oak leaves. The next day
a cold wind washed the leaves closer together, and trickling streams
from the hillside swept some earth over them. The acorn was buried.
"But I shall wake again," it said, and so it fell asleep. It was very
cold, but the frost fairies wove a soft, white snow blanket to cover
it, and so it was kept warm.
If you had walked through the woods that winter, you would have said
that the acorn was gone. But spring came and called to all the
sleeping things underground to waken and come forth. The acorn heard
and tried to move, but the brown shell held it fast. Some raindrops
trickled through the ground to moisten the shell, and one day the
pushing life within set it free. The brown shell was of no more use
and was lost in the ground, but the young plant lived. It heard voices
of birds calling it upward. It must grow. "A new and glorious life,"
the mother oak had said.
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