When You’re in the Mood for a Story

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A Little Tree

Little Tree didn’t mind being alone at the top of the hill. The view was spectacular. Every day, right before dawn, when the navy sky whispered that it was starting to wake up, Little Tree would tremble in anticipation. He loved being bathed in the sunrise.

This morning, Little Tree watched the sun peek shyly over the horizon, feeling its warmth climb his trunk, inch by inch. He delighted in the different colors that slowly washed over his branches—sea green to lion gold to fuzzy peach, exploding with one last burst of blush pink before the sky finally melted into the color of the day.

Today was a cloudless, brilliant blue. The kind of blue that made the grass look greener. The kind of blue that silhouetted Little Tree’s trunk in a crisp, knobby outline and make his curvy oak leaves sway. The kind of blue that made you feel like something was coming. Little Tree felt itchy in expectation.

The family of Blue Jays that had made a home in his branches were busy feathering their nest, and the fox that liked to chat and sniff his trunk only came every once in a while, and only at night. Little Tree wasn’t sure what he was ready for, but there was just a sense that he was ready for…more. And, on that bright, cloudless, blue spring morning, something more came.

Little Tree felt the wind first.

“Do you feel that breeze, Bonnie Jay?”

“Do I feel the breeze? Of course I feel the breeze. I’m a bird. If I wasn’t stuck here tending these eggs, I would ride that breeze. In fact, I’m waiting for Mr. Jay to use that breeze to hurry up and bring me my breakfast,” Mrs. Jay grumped as she shifted on her eggs.

“Oh, yes. Of course,” replied Little Tree. “I think it would be wonderful, riding the breeze. The only parts of me that get to ride the breeze are my leaves when they leave me in the fall. But that doesn’t count.”

Little Tree sighed and surveyed the valley below his hill to the east. It was green, as far as the eye could see. A few homes now dotted the distance, but they were far enough away that they seemed more like landscape boulders with smoking chimneys than nosy neighbors. A movement in the west tickled his periphery. Little Tree turned his attention and saw something heading his way.

“What is that?” Little Tree asked Mrs. Jay.

“What is what?” Bonnie asked back.

“That thing. In the west. Floating so cheerfully.”

“Oh, that? That’s a seed, Little Tree.”

“A seed?! What kind of seed?” Little Tree asked excitedly.

“How am I supposed to know what kind of seed it is? Do you think I’m a seed expert? I’m hatching babies—I don’t have time to analyze every little seed that comes floating by,” Bonnie huffed.

“But this seed is special,” Little Tree said.

“Every plant thinks every seed is special,” Bonnie muttered to herself, fidgeting to find a more comfortable position. Those eggs could get lumpy after a while.