“
Furl your banners and hang you heads,” muttered the wind, “this is no time for tourney. Cast into my four arms those gaudy trappings, for what can cause you joy, O trees, at such a time as this?”
“This rising Sun and the long bright bright day,” the beech cried out.
“The setting Sun and the cool dark night,” the oak said quietly.
“And the rain,” the pine murmured gratefully, “wit it’s gentle fingers finer than my needles.”
The maple was silent. The wind spun around it’s rough gray trunk and sent a shower of gold into the sky.
“O wind,” the maple said, “the side passage of the year from cold to heat, from growing to fruition, from birds nesting to their migrations, is joy enough for us. Let us celebrate it, O wind, before the snow lays it’s white fingers on us and bids us be silent for a time.” The maple spoke wistfully, golden leaves tumbling down the day at every word.
“You speak of memories,” the wind went on. “I who have roamed the earth have seen suffering and cruelty and sorrow. You who stand so still in one place always must believe me.”
“For you, O wind, perhaps it has been a year of sad revelation,” the beech said softly; “but for us it has been a year like all others—rising suns and waxing moons, rains and dews and storms, and the seasons marching in orderly procession around us.”
“Ah,” the wind wailed, clutching at gold and scarlet and green, “how can you hold those banners high when evil still stalks the earth?”
The trees quivered and were silent. The wind raged around them, and his fury brought down cascades of leaves, which he sent hurling over the dry ground.
“We hold our banners high in faith, O wind,” the pine spoke out, lifting its voice so the wind would hear, “emblem for this brief moment of the pledge we have made. We have heard before of these things that you would tell us. The stars have told us many strange tales, and the moon has told us even stranger ones. But we must still be faithful.”
“To what?” moaned the wind, annoyed that his words could not deter the trees from their galliard ways.
“To the everlasting right at the heart of things,” replied the maple. “Evil has but a little day, O wind, and good has a thousand.”
The banners were fading and falling, and the wind laughed to himself that the brave words of the trees must be as thin and fleeting. He stamped and reached high, swept over the ground and leapt aloft, while leaves fell in a gilded shower about him. Cheering at his triumph, he looked through bare branches to the sky, heavy with scudding clouds.
Oak, maple, beech were silenced now. Dark trunks stood rooted in the earth, crossed boughs were held uplifted to the heavens. The pine swayed slowly, it’s heraldic blazon of sable and vert gleaming darkly.
“Look higher, wind, than those bare boughs. Look wider.”
The wind looked, and there, outlined against the sunset gold, on every twig tight buds were tipping: the crimson secret of the oak, the enscaled cradle of the maple, the little sheathed sword of the beech.
“Faith, my friend,” the pine said in a whisper, “faith has the last word always.”
The wind bowed low, low enough to kiss the leaves that swirled around him in a moment of ecstasy; then the wind went on his way down the archway of the year that was luminous with promise.
”
”