The old ones lay still, for they thought; the young ones, on the contrary, were so brisk—­busy, but apparently uneasy.  One little pig had a curly tail—­that curl was the mother’s delight.  She thought that they all looked at the curl, and thought only of the curl; but that they did not.  They thought of themselves, and of what was useful, and of what the forest was for.  They had always heard that the acorns they ate grew on the roots of the trees, and therefore they had always rooted there; but now there came a little one—­for it is always the young ones that come with news—­and he asserted that the acorns fell down from the branches:  he himself had felt one fall right on his head, and that had given him the idea, so he had made observations, and now he was quite sure of what he asserted.  The old ones laid their heads together.  “Uff,” said the swine, “uff! the finery is past! the twittering of the birds is past! we will have fruit! whatever can be eaten is good, and we eat everything!”

“Oui! oui!” said they altogether.

But the mother sow looked at her little pig with the curly tail.

“One must not, however, forget the beautiful!” said she.

“Caw! caw!” screamed the crow, and flew down, in order to be appointed nightingale:  one there should be—­and so the crow was directly appointed.

“Past! past!” sighed the Rose King, “all the beautiful is past!”

It was wet; it was gloomy; there was cold and wind, and the rain pelted down over the fields, and through the forest, like long water jets.  Where are the birds that sang? where are the flowers in the meadows, and the sweet berries in the wood?—­past! past!

A light shone from the forester’s house:  it twinkled like a star, and shed its long rays out between the trees.  A song was heard from within; pretty children played around their old grandfather, who sat with the Bible on his lap and read about God, and eternal life, and spoke of the spring that would come again:  he spoke of the forest that would renew its green leaves, of the roses that would flower, of the nightingales that would sing, and of the beautiful that would again be paramount.

But the Rose King did not hear it; he sat in the raw, cold weather, and sighed: 

“Past! past!”

And the swine were lords in the forest, and the mother sow looked at her little pig, and his curly tail.

“There will always be some, who have a sense for the beautiful!” said the mother sow.

POETRY’S CALIFORNIA.

* * * * *

Nature’s treasures are most often unveiled to us by accident.  A dog’s nose was dyed by the bruised purple fish, and the genuine purple dye was discovered; a pair of wild buffalos were fighting on America’s auriferous soil, and their horns tore up the green sward that covered the rich gold vein.