THE LONELY LITTLE POOL

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 42, 17 August 1935, Page 20

THE LONELY LITTLE POOL

DEEP down in the very heart of the forest glimmered a lonely little pool. Sometimes it was as green as jade and sometime? black as jet, but it was always still and sad because it had never seen the beautiful sky. It could only see a multitude of dark, twisting branches and a thousand trembling leaves. One day a bird singing amid the green leaves called out to the little pool; "All the time you lie sleeping under die trees I sing and flutter through the bright skies where the sun is shining like a golden lantern and the white clouds are sailing like big ships." "I can't help lying down here," said the pool. "How can I fly without wings?" "Well, I'm sorry, for you," trilled the bird. "You must be very lonely." "Indeed I am," sighed the pool. "I wish the great trees would part so that, l could get a glimpse of the wonderful sky you sing about." "Well," continued the little bird, "Some day your wish may come true, and you might fly, you know!. Now goodbye. I'm off to build my nest." So the happy bird spread its tiny wings and flew away, and the long green ferns bent forwards and gazed at the shadowy face of the lonely pool. v , But one day shouts were heard in the still forest. The woodcutters had come with their glittering axes. . They started down the mighty trees all round the dark pool. The birds flew away quite startled, and the little squirrels and rabbits rushed away,l too. . Every, day there was a fearful grinding, sawing noise,, but the little pool didn't mind it at all, for every time a great forest giant toppled over more and more of the sky came into view.- At last the sides were no longer hidden and the little pool knew that it shone like a sapphire in' the morning light ' Smiling and trembling with joy it whispered to the warm sunbeams: "At last I can see the yellow sun and the. feathery clouds. I wish I were a cloud and could glide through the air like those I can see moving above me. Do you think I shall have to stay on the earth all the time?" Then the golden sunbeams all smiled. "Don't you know," they replied, "that we are going to change you into a cloud and send you drifting across the heavens?" "What!'! cried the pool; "can you really change a pool of water like me into a fair while cloud?" "Just have patience," quivered the sunbeams, "and see what hapens." Then, for-many days the sunbeams shone steadily pn the little pool, and in time it was lifted up into the blue sky, for it was changed first into such a fine mist- thai only the fairies could see it, and then as it rose higher and higher inlo the cold air it turned into a large, white cloud. How happy it felt sailing across the sky! At night the stars twinkled above it like diamonds, and in the early morning it turned inlo the most lovely colours,, violet and orange and tawny gold. This was when the sun rose in the glorious eastern sky. There were hundreds of clouds in the sky, and they all looked lovely at sunrise and sunset. But sometimes there were so many of them clustering together that they shut' out the pleasant sunlight. Now the cloud that had once been a lonely pool wandered through the cold air until at last it grew quite tired. "After all," it thought, I would like to be on the earth again. I'm so tired of moving about all the time." ■ The icy north wind then began lo blow, and its breath was so cold that the cloud melted tearfully away, and in crystal drops of rain it fell inlo the ocean far below. There il mingled and danced wilh the wild waves, and it forgot that it had ever been a lonely little pool. I. M. RAYNER.