Tossed up by the Sea. 51

“*Every one for himself, cried the sprite, catching a splinter
of wood for a float, and throwing himself overboard. This
was what the rats advised in case of wreck, but not one of
them succeeded in reaching shore. The waves bore our hero
along safely—he was as light as a feather on his oak float;
and finally he was tossed up on the shore more dead than
alive, as a shipwrecked mariner always is, whether sprite or
mortal.

“When the suh rose next morning the brave ship was gone,
and all the crew had perished. A little sprite and a bit of
wood alone remained.

“* Ah, if we were only rooted in our home beside the brook,’
sighed the bit of wood.

“« Are you my tree? cried the sprite.

“Yes; I have brought you to land, and now you must give
me a decent burial on this foreign shore,’ said the last splinter
of the once grand tree.

“So the sprite found a spot high above the waves, and com-
menced to dig a grave with his tiny hands; but he got along
very slowly.

“*T have no patience with such clumsiness!’ said a Mother
Carey’s chicken that happened to be strolling past. Then the
bird would have helped to make the grave by scraping the
sand with its claws.

“*No, no!’ cried the sprite. ‘I must bury my own tree
alone.’

“The bit of wood was dragged to the hole, and a pebble
placed as a head-stone to mark the spot. |

“* The oak-tree is dead,’ sobbed the sprite over the grave.