The Old Willow Tree, and Other Stories

When spring returned, the dog, one day, came jogging round the fence.

It took longer than last year and he was now almost quite blind in the other eye as well. But he found his way to the apple-tree and rubbed himself, so that she saw that he still had those fleas.

"All going as usual, Dog?"

"Yes, Apple-Tree… Same with you?"

"Well, I'll tell you," said the tree. "I daresay you remember that stone the blackbird brought me? Well, look here, some time ago, I felt a most curious pricking and itching and aching just where it was."

"Then it must be a flea," said the dog.

"Now listen," said the tree. "It was a most unpleasant sensation. And then my branch swelled up at the place where the stone was…"

"It's a flea, it's a flea!" cried the dog. "There's no doubt about it. Just rub yourself up against me, old Apple-Tree! It's only fair that I should make you a return for your kindness."

"What does a flea look like?" asked the apple-tree.

"We-ell," said the dog and rubbed himself. "They're that sort of chaps, you know, that one really never has time to see them."

"Has a flea green leaves?"

"Not that I know of," said the dog.

"Come and look up here," said the tree. "There … on my lowest branch … just above your head … is that a flea?"

The old dog stood on his hind-legs and blinked with his blind eyes:

"I can't see so far," he said. "But I have never been able to see the fleas on my own tail, so that doesn't mean anything."

Then he slunk away.

But, a little later, a thin voice came from the apple-tree's branch and said:

"I am not a flea. I am the mistletoe."

"Well, I'm no wiser," said the apple-tree.

"I'm a plant like yourself," said the voice. "I shall turn into a bush … with roots and branches and flowers and leaves and all the rest of it."

"Then why don't you grow in the ground like us?" asked the crab-apple-tree.

"That happens not to be my nature," said the mistletoe.

"Then you have a nasty nature," said the apple-tree and shook herself furiously, so that her white blossoms trembled. "For I understand this much, that I shall have to feed you, you sluggard!"

"Yes, please, if you will be so good," said the mistletoe. "I have my roots fixed in you already; and I am growing day by day. Later on, I shall put forth little green blossoms. They're not much to look at; but then the berries will come, beautiful, juicy white berries: the blackbird is quite mad on them."

"The blackbird is a very fine bird," said the apple-tree; "but, if he wants to dine off me, he can eat my own apples."

"You mustn't think that I have berries for the blackbird's sake," said the mistletoe. "Inside the berry there is a stone; and in the stone my seed lies. And the stone is so sticky that it hangs tight on to the blackbird's beak, until he manages to rub it off on some good old apple-tree or other, who will be a foster-mother to my children, as you have been to me."

"You're a nice family, upon my word!" said the apple-tree. "Aren't you ashamed to live upon other people's labour? And can't you cast your seed on the ground, as every one else does, and leave it to look after itself?"

"No," said the mistletoe, "I can't. But it's no use my explaining that to you. There is something mysterious and refined about me that raises me above the common trees. Men and women understand it. They have surrounded me with beautiful and curious legends and ballads. Just think, over in England they simply can't keep Christmas without hanging a bunch of me from the ceiling. Then, when they dance and come under the bunch, they are allowed to kiss each other."

"Pooh!" said the crab-apple-tree. "That's nothing to talk about. Why, there isn't an engaged couple in the whole parish but has sat in my shade and kissed."

"You miss the point of it, old friend," said the mistletoe. "Engaged couples can kiss wherever they please. But those who dance under the mistletoe may kiss each other even if they are not engaged."

"You horrid, immoral foreigner!" said the apple-tree. "But one can't expect anything else from the sort of life you lead. Well, it's to be hoped that you'll freeze to bits in the winter."

"Indeed, I shall do no such thing," replied the mistletoe. "When your leaves are withered and fallen and you stand strutting with your bare branches in the snow, mine will be just as fresh and green as now. I am evergreen you must know: green in winter and green in spring."

The crab-apple-tree was so exasperated that she was quite unable to reply. But, when the dog came next day, she told him all about it.

"Then he is a flea, after all," said the old dog. "In a fashion. You must manage to rub him off you: that's the only thing that helps a bit."

"I am not a dog to run and rub myself," said the apple-tree. "But, all the same, it's hard for a respectable tree to have to put up with this sort of thing in her old age."

"Take it calmly now!" said the mistletoe. "Who knows but that you'll end by being glad to have me?"

4

The next summer, an old professor, with a pair of spectacles on his nose and a great botanizing-case on his back, came roaming through the wood.

He sat down under the crab-apple-tree to eat his lunch, but fell a-thinking in the middle of it, leant his head back against the trunk and looked up into the leaves.

Suddenly he jumped up, dropped his sandwich and stared hard at the mistletoe. He took off his spectacles, wiped them on the skirt of his coat, put them back on his nose and went on staring.

Then he ran in and fetched the old keeper:

"Keeper, do you see that tree?" he said. "That's the most remarkable tree in the whole wood."

"That one there?" said the keeper. "Why, it's only an old crab-apple-tree, professor. You should see a couple of apple-trees I have in my garden."

"I don't care a fig for them," said the professor. "I would give all the apple-trees in the world for this one tree. There's a mistletoe growing on her, you must know, and the mistletoe is the rarest plant in Denmark. You must put a fence round the tree at once, so that no one can hurt her. For, if she dies, then the mistletoe dies too."

And a fence was put round the old apple-tree. The professor wrote about her in the newspapers; and every one who came to the neighbourhood had to go and look at the mistletoe.

"Well?" said the mistletoe.

"My dear little foster-child," said the crab-apple-tree, "if there's anything you require, do, for goodness' sake, say so!"

When the keeper's old dog came out and wanted to rub himself, he remained standing in amazement and looked at the fence with his one, half-blind eye.

"You can go back to the garden and rub yourself against the real apple-trees!" said the crab-apple-tree, haughtily. "I stand here with a mistletoe and must be treated with the utmost care. If I die, the mistletoe dies: do you understand? I have been written about in the papers. I am the most important tree in the wood!"

"Yes … you're all that!" said the dog and jogged home again.