A flax tree was full of flowers.It is full of very beautiful blue flowers.The flowers are as soft as moth wings, and even softer than that.The sun shines on the flax, and the rain and fog moisten it.It's as if children get a kiss from their mother after being washed--making them cuter.The same goes for flax.
"People say I'm so good-looking," said Flax, "and that I'm so beautiful and long that I'll be able to weave nice cloth. Why, how lucky am I! I'll be the luckiest man ever How delightful the sun is! How sweet and refreshing the rain is! I am extraordinarily lucky; I am the luckiest of all things!"
"Yes, yes, yes!" said the fence post. "You don't understand the world, but we do, because we have knots!" So they creaked pessimistically:
Squeak-ch-shh,
Pai-hu-hu,
The song is over.
"No, Geer is not over yet!" said Flax. "Tomorrow morning the sun will come out, and the rain will cheer. I can hear me growing, and I can feel myself blooming! I am the luckiest of all creatures!"
But one day people came and took the flax by the head and pulled it out of the soil by the roots.It hurts.It was placed in water as if people were going to drown it.Then it was put on fire again, as if people were going to roast it to death.
This is really scary!
"One cannot live happily ever after!" said Flax. "A man should suffer a little before he can understand something."
But worse times have come.The flax was snapped, torn, crumpled and combed.Yes, it doesn't know what kind of stuff it is.It was mounted on a spinning wheel—squeak!Squeak!Squeal--it made him so dizzy that even thinking was impossible.
"I was very lucky once!" it recalled in agony. "A man should know happiness when he is happy! Joy! Joy! Ah!" it was still saying when it was loaded on the loom.So it was woven into a large piece of beautiful cloth.All the flax, every strand, was woven into this cloth.
"However, it was so unexpected! I would never have believed it before!
Hi!how happy i am!Yes, there is a point in the Fence Stakes singing:
Squeak-ch-shh,
Pai-hu-hu!
"The song is not finished at all! It is only just beginning now! It is unexpected! If I have suffered a little, it has not been in vain. I am the happiest of all things! How strong and strong I am! How soft, how white, how long! I was but a plant—even in flower; and I am quite different now than I was before! No one took care of me before, only when it rained. Just got a little water. Now I am tended! The maid turns me over every morning, and I take a shower in the sink every night. Yes, the pastor's wife even wrote an article about me speech, that I am the best piece of cloth in the whole parish. I couldn't be happier!"
Now the cloth came into the house and was cut with a pair of scissors.How people are cutting it, how they are cutting it, how they are pricking it with needles!That's how people deal with it, and it's not very pleasant.It was cut into twelve unnamed but integral parts of a garment—a dozen exactly!
"Hey, now I've got something! This is my lot! Yes, that's real happiness! I'm somewhat useful to the world now, as I should—that's real happiness! We become twelve things, but at the same time we are one. We are a dozen, which is rare luck!"
Many years have passed.They can no longer stay together.
"One day it's all over," said each part. "I wish we'd stayed together longer, but you can't count on the impossible!"
They are now torn into rags.They thought it was all over now because they had been chopped and boiled.Yes, they themselves don't know what they are.In the end they turned into beautiful white paper.
"Oh, what a wonder, a lovely wonder!" said the paper. "I'm more beautiful now than I was before and people are going to write on me! What a stroke of luck!"
It had words written on it—the most beautiful stories written.People listen to these written stories—these are smart and beautiful things that make people wiser and better.These words written on paper are the greatest happiness.
"It's far more wonderful than anything I could have dreamed of when I was a little blue flower in the field. How could I have imagined that I could spread joy and knowledge among men? I don't even know it myself! But It is true. God knows that I am powerless except what my feeble strength can do to preserve myself! And yet He never ceases to give me joy and glory. Every time I think of ' When the song is over', the song begins again in a nobler and better way. Now I will undoubtedly be sent to travel all over the world so that everyone can read me. This kind of thing is very likely Yes! Once I had blue flowers, and now every flower has become the most beautiful thought! I am the happiest of all things!"
But the paper did not travel, but went to a printing office.The things written on it have been arranged into books, or you can say thousands or hundreds of books, because only in this way can countless people get happiness and benefits.It's much better than writing on paper, traveling the world and ruining it less than halfway.
"Yes, this is indeed the smartest way!" thought the written paper. "I did not think of it! I shall be at home, respected, like an old grandfather! The writing is on my body; the words flow from the pen directly into my body. I do not move, but It is books that travel here and there. I can indeed do something now! How happy I am, how happy I am!"
So the paper was rolled into a small roll and put on the shelf.
"It's good to take a break after work," Paper said. "Put your mind together and think about what's in your belly - that's right. Now for the first time I know what I'm capable of - knowing myself is progress. What else am I going to be? I'm still going on ; I am always moving forward!"
One day the paper was put on the stove to burn because it couldn't be sold in the grocery store to wrap butter and brown sugar.The children in the house huddled together; they wanted to see it burn, they wanted to see the red sparks in the ashes--these sparks, one by one, soon disappeared and went out.It's a lot like a kid after school.The last spark is like a teacher: everyone always thinks he left early, but he came out behind others.
All the papers are rolled into a roll and put on fire.oh!It burns fast.
"Oh!" it said, and at the same time it became a bright firework.The flames rose high, and flax never raised its little blue flowers so high.It shone with a sparkle that white linen never shone.All the words written on it turned red in an instant; the words and thoughts became a flame.
"Now I'm going straight up to the sun!" said a voice in the flames.
It was as if a thousand voices were singing in chorus.Fireworks ran outside through the chimney.There, tiny creatures, finer than fireworks, invisible to the human eye, floated, rivaling the flax blossoms in number.They are lighter than the flame that produced them.When the flames were extinguished and the paper was nothing but a pinch of black ashes, they danced once on the ashes.They left marks everywhere they touched—many little red sparks.The kids are all coming out of school and the teacher is always at the end!It's fun to watch this situation!The children of the family stood round the ashes and sang a song—
Squeak-ch-shh,
Pai-hu-hu!
The song is over!
But the tiny, invisible creatures say:
"Songs never end! This is the best song of all!
I know this, and therefore I am the happiest! "
But children can neither hear nor understand it; in fact they shouldn't understand it, because children shouldn't know everything.
