THE BEGINNING

Evening Star, Issue 21992, 30 March 1935, Page 5

THE BEGINNING

Oue day when Raikes, the gardener, was trimming a young tree his pruning knife slipped and cut a deep gash in the stem.

“Crumbs!” he said, “I must put a clay poultice over that,” and he was about to do so when he was interrupted by a call from his employer. So the cut was left and forgotten. A few years later a woodlouse was crawling round the base of that tree. “Crumbs!” ho said, “There's decaying wood somewhere about here.” He proceeded to investigate, and found that the wood of the tree had rotted where it had been damaged years before. He carried the news to his friends, and before long a colony of woodlice had taken possession, as a result of which the hole was made much larger. Sometimes rain trickled into the hole and helped to spread the decay. Years after that a sprightly young blue tit visited the tree. “ Crumbs!” he said. “ This hole in the tree looks promising,” and he flew off to search for his wife, who was just then seeking for grubs among the buds of a fruit tree. “ Can’t you see I am busy?” complained Mrs Blue Tit in reply to her husband’s insistent calls. When she heard that there was a desirable residence with vacant possession near by she went with her mate to the hole, peeped cautiously inside, peeked at the soft decayed wood, and decided that the hole could easily be made large enough for a family. So they took possession. : In the course of time a family of blue tits was hatched, and eight fearful youngsters tumbled out of the hole, tried their wings, and presently flew away. But the next spring one of them returned to the old hole and decided to use it for his home. So for years the hole was used by family after family of tits. Many years later; the north-east wind was raging spreading damage and destruction wherever he could find an opportunity. “Crumbs!” he said, “this tree has been damaged and weakened. I wonder if I am strong enough to blow it down.”

He blew a groat blast. Creak, crack, cr-r-ash! and the tree snapped off. because it had been weakened when it was young. When it fell, “Crumbs!” said the gardener, and the woodlouse, and the

blue tit. But it was not the same gardener, nor the same woodlouse, nor the same blue tit.