There was once a forest with deep green moss. It teemed with mushrooms in the autumn, whilst on spring mornings, glistening with dew, the sunlight could almost be touched between its elm trees like a thin curtain. In the heart of the forest stood an old wooden clock, with a little door at its bottom, and a tiny shutter in its face which sprang open excitedly on the hour, from sunrise to sunset; at that moment, one of the sparrows that dipped and hopped amongst the elms would glide through the door, up the clock, and out of the shutter with a playful cheep.
It happened one day that a cheep did not come. The sparrow whose hour it was to glide through the little door and out of the tiny shutter dipped and hopped not through the clock's door, but again and again until it had left the forest. The next hour, a cheep came again: a sparrow burst through and out of the shutter with glee, as before. But hours began to not be marked now and then, and thereafter less often still; cheeps came to be heard only occasionally.
Many generations later, the moss of the forest lay mottled and ragged. No mushrooms found their way through it in the autumn, and in the spring the sunlight could not be seen through the elms' branches, which had become tangled. The clock in the heart of the forest still stood; forgotten, but its varnish was untarnished, and the decorations with which it was finely carved were unsplintered.
On the edge of the forest lay a house in which a little girl lived. When she ran to and fro in play, sparrows flitted gleefully around her. One day, the little girl, running from elm to elm with her train of sparrows, came upon the clock. It so happened that, just then, the hour turned. The door of the clock, and the tiny shutter in its face, sprang open as before. One of the sparrows dancing around the little girl suddenly flew through the door, arrowed up the inside of the clock, and darted out of its shutter with a delighted cheep.
From then on, the little girl often came to the clock in the heart of the forest; mirthful cheeps began to be heard more and more frequently, until so many sparrows would take their turn on a gust of wind through the little door, out of the tiny shutter, that there was not an hour of the day that a cheep was not heard.
By that autumn, the moss was renewed: a rich green, with a meadow of mushrooms. The forest's elms grew freely; next spring, its dew glinted again in the mornings, with ethereal drapes of sunlight between the elms.
Last updated: 18:37 (GMT+2), 29th July 2024