old oak-tree's cheering words. The child was there and heard it all.

One day the great wind came out of the north. Hurry-scurry! back to their
warm homes in the earth and under the old stone wall scampered the
crickets and bumblebees to go to sleep. Whirr, whirr! Oh, but how piercing
the great wind was; how different from his amiable brother who had
travelled all the way from the Southern sea to kiss the flowers and woo
the rose!

"Well, this is the last of us!" exclaimed the thistle; "we're going to
die, and that's the end of it all!"

"No, no," cried the old oak-tree; "we shall not die; we are going to
sleep. Here, take my leaves, little flowers, and you shall sleep warm
under them. Then, when you awaken, you shall see how much sweeter and
happier the new life is."

The little ones were very weary indeed. The promised sleep came very
gratefully.

"We would not be so willing to go to sleep if we thought we should not
awaken," said the violet.

So the little ones went to sleep. The little vine was the last of all to
sink to her slumbers; she nodded in the wind and tried to keep awake till
she saw the old oak-tree close his eyes, but her efforts were vain; she
nodded and nodded, and bowed her slender form against the old stone wall,
till finally she, too, had sunk into repose. And then the old oak-tree
stretched his weary limbs and gave a last look at the sullen sky and at
the slumbering little ones at his feet; and with that, the old oak-tree