As it moved along, the
foxes stuck their heads out of the lairs in astonishment, and wondered
what kind of backwoods people these were. As they marched past old coal
pits where charcoal kilns were fired every autumn, the cross-beaks
twisted their hooked bills, and asked one another what kind of coalers
these might be who were now thronging the forest.
Finally, the procession reached the big, burnt mountain plain. The rocks
had been stripped of the fine twin-flower creepers that once covered
them; they had been robbed of the pretty silver moss and the attractive
reindeer moss. Around the dark water gathered in clefts and hollows
there was now no wood-sorrel. The little patches of soil in crevices and
between stones were without ferns, without star-flowers, without all the
green and red and light and soft and soothing things which usually
clothe the forest ground.
It was as if a bright light flashed upon the mountain when all the
parish children covered it. Here again was something sweet and delicate;
something fresh and rosy; something young and growing. Perhaps these
children would bring to the poor abandoned forest a little new life.
When the children had rested and eaten their luncheon, they seized hoes
and spades and began to work. The foresters showed them what to do. They
set out shrub after shrub on every clear spot of earth they could find.
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