The Little Pine Tree

by Elizabeth Dow

Title

The Little Pine Tree

Artist

Elizabeth Dow

Medium

Photograph - Photographs

Description

Being cooped up in my house and only venturing into my woods has been my life for a while now due to the pandemic. This has forced me to find beauty and an escape in different ways. It's actually been quite liberating at times. In the early part of February, I discovered this little pine tree. It seemed to me that I had read a book to my children and to my preschool students when I was teaching about a little pine tree. While looking through the internet, I found this very short story by E. Louise Smythe. I had never heard of this story before. It was written in the late 1800's. I have copied and pasted the entire story here.

The Little Pine Tree
by E. Louise Smythe

A little pine tree was in the woods.
It had no leaves. It had needles.

The little tree said, "I do not like needles. All the other trees in the woods have pretty leaves. I want leaves, too. But I will have better leaves. I want gold leaves."

Night came and the little tree went to sleep. A fairy came by and gave it gold leaves.

When the little tree woke it had leaves of gold.

It said, "Oh, I am so pretty! No other tree has gold leaves."

Night came.

A man came by with a bag. He saw the gold leaves. He took them all and put them into his bag.

The poor little tree cried, "I do not want gold leaves again. I will have glass leaves."

So the little tree went to sleep. The fairy came by and put the glass leaves on it.

The little tree woke and saw its glass leaves.

How pretty they looked in the sunshine! 'No other tree was so bright.

Then a wind came up. It blew and blew.

The glass leaves all fell from the tree and were broken.

Again the little tree had no leaves. It was very sad, and said, "I will not have gold leaves and I will not have glass leaves. I want green leaves. I want to be like the other trees."

And the little tree went to sleep. When it woke, it was like other trees. It had green leaves.

A goat came by. He saw the green leaves on the little tree. The goat was hungry and he ate all the leaves.

Then the little tree said, "I do not want any leaves. I will not have green leaves, nor glass leaves, nor gold leaves. I like my needles best."

And the little tree went to sleep. The fairy gave it what it wanted.When it woke, it had its needles again. Then the little pine tree was happy.

So the lesson for this story for children and adults alike, is to be happy with what you have and who you are. Don't compare yourself to others or wish for something that has no reflection on who you are as a person.

Uploaded

March 9th, 2021

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