In a faraway land, there lay a beautiful forest, dappled with moonlight and filled with sounds of gentle rustling leaves and cheerful noises of the animals. Among all the trees stood the oldest one; its trunk was very wide, its branches spread out like long arms, and its top seemed to touch the stars in the sky. In this tree lived a wise old owl. Every night, when other animals were asleep, Ollie the Owl went flying over the forest and gave advice to everyone who needed it.
“Good nights!” they all said every evening when he came out of his house, and “Good nights!” they all replied when they heard him say it. The squirrels chattered and said, “Good nights!” as he went by. But that word was the last thing that many an honest little animal said before lying down to sleep, and more than once the woodmen passing under the tree have heard brave soldiers, and gentle ladies, and good, serious ministers bless his name. Every year the nightingale came to sing him, from early spring to late autumn, a “Good night,” and the hidling damsel flies had made a great many voyages to carry little rings with “Good nights!” round them to his ears. Towards the end of summer many messengers arrived, laden with “Good nights!” from the learned gentlemen who thought he might be useful in writing their books. Then, of course, Ollie said “Good morning!” to all of them. But the last was always a “Good nights!” because the rest were “out of season.” Nothing pleased him better than a visit from anybody on whom he could bestow the light of his wisdom. It was his greatest delight. So when the animal world had decided to get up a little visit to him, and considered how it could best be done, it really seemed hardly worth while.
On the night before the visit a little bevy of young ears sat shuddering and trembling at the thought of daring so much as to knock at his door. “Do you think he will speak to us?” said Mr. Badger. “He’s a good-natured soul,” said the wise man. “But I think something very strange will happen. I don’t think we ought to presume to disturb him.”
Just as he said so, down dropped Ollie before them. “How do you do?” said he. “What brings you? Is it the rain?”
All the young animals stood aghast. “To wish you good night,” they had meant to say, but they felt too bashful to do so. “Be not so bashful,” Ollie went on, noticing the behaviour of the little ones. “You need not all speak at once. I am very old, you know, and have heard so much in my time, that talking all together does not on the whole perturb me as much as if I heard it first thing in the morning.”
“I—I—ah—I beg your pardon, Ollie,” said Mr. Squirrel, recovering himself with an effort. “We were just talking over if we should not like tonight, of all nights when you are good enough to pay us a visit, to run over and make it your own house a little. If you give us only your answer, we will not disturb you to-night by sending anybody over, or by coming ourselves, but just as it is to make sure.”
But it was of no use saying anything to Ollie. Nothing surprised him at all, and he went on listening to them in the middle of the forest, where they were talking, as before.
“My good friends,” he said at last, “this is indeed a matter of great importance. How am I to give you an answer?”
The animals looked at one another in utter perplexity. And as they looked they saw all around them no light but that of the moon shining sickly on them through the leaves, and straight down from that side in a thousand little spots of light on the ground. It was a bewitching summer’s night, and still some sense of decency kept them from dancing. Such was the impression made by Ollie the Owl so little, just as little, of what he was, by many days sitting still with white and unsullied clothes; just as I have said at least a hundred times before.
“My good friends, this is indeed a matter of great importance. How am I to give you an answer?”Do you think I had not better run over to mine?” said Ollie. “To the place in question? But that earthquake beside my tree?—Ah, won’t you let me do it? The truth is, I am no philosopher, but the thought of being so would always please me, and, a philosopher it seems one ought to do without fail. The tree is a little thing. If you permit me to do so, I will take down some new dishes. I .will take down a glass which I have always kept wrapped without; but it does get a little dim in this climate one day, and a little brighter the next. If you let me have a little time I must be off at once from your house, but you know of course yourself—do you not?—that the real thing is, the sooner one dissolves into millons of little particles, the better. But I can also go by myself, if you let me. The best fireworks one must take care of oneself ; or if not——“ Here they stopped Ollie in the middle of a sentence, and heard nothing more. Certain it was though, that the man whom he tried to manifest himself at that moment, was unscarf and inconsiderate to a marked degree.
But he thought of all these things, Mr. Woodpecker said had had some influence too. So “Good nights!” was manfully said first by one, then by another, and lastly by all. And so the happy light-hearted creatures all scuttled homewards, feeling all of them distinctly, that Ollie the Owl must be an excellent good sort of a fellow.