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Little Acorn did not want to grow up.
He loved his cap.
He loved the ants playing in the grass.
But mostly,
he just didn’t want things to change.
He often wondered grumpily,
“Why can’t everything just stay the same?”
Papa Oak Tree understood.
“It can be hard sometimes,
but wonderful things can happen
when you allow yourself to grow…
“Take the helpless bluejay chicks
that nested in my branches.
All they could do was
CHEEP, CHEEP, CHEEP,
demanding some squirmy worms to eat.
They couldn’t do anything for themselves –
they didn’t even have feathers!
Before long, though,
they had some fluffy down
and then long flight feathers.
Now they can take to the sky!
They can get their own food to eat.
And come next year,
they’ll even have their own nest of babies to keep.”
Little Acorn watched with joy
the jays swooping up and down.
He wondered what it would be like
to have nests in his leafy crown.
“But won’t the nests be itchy?”
Little Acorn asked.
“The nests might itch a little,”
said Papa Oak Tree, with a laugh,
“but it’s worth it.
I know you like the chattering squirrels—
how their fluffy tails swish,
how they climb and frisk.
Once, though, they were little, too—
with eyes shut, hairless, toothless.
They were helpless in their drey,
their nest, high in the safety of my branches.
Their mamas fed them milk
as their fluff formed,
as their gnawing teeth grew,
as their eyes opened to the wide world.
Then one crisp spring morning,
they were strong enough
to poke their little heads out.
Then there was no stopping them!
They scampered, they climbed, they scurried!
It made them strong and stout.
By next year, new dreys will appear
with new babies, without a doubt.”
Little Acorn laughed
as the squirrels SKITTER SCRITCHED.
“It really would be funny
to see them race around my trunk,
but I couldn’t possibly care for them all,”
he said, falling back into his funk.
Papa Oak Tree swished his branches happily.
“You won’t be alone, my son.
Smell the air and you will see.
There is a special mushroom that grows
deep within the ground.
It might be brown and lumpy,
but it’s a good friend I have found.
From spores too small to see,
like seeds that never show,
truffles stretch their thin white hairs –
that is how they grow.
They give me nutrients I need,
and I share with them my food.
They, in turn, help feed
the squirrels and birds
with their delicious truffle fruits.
Those animals do their part
by spreading all the spores,
so next year the truffles
will keep on growing all the more.”
Little Acorn could almost smell
his truffles growing all around.
How wonderful his own strong roots would be
burrowing through the ground.
But the more he thought of the damp, dank soil,
the less that he was merry.
“But, Papa,” he whispered with a shiver,
“what if the dark ground’s too scary?”
With gently bending boughs, Papa Oak Tree said,
“You, my child, might have fun
beneath my branches in the autumn sun.
But if you let a squirrel or jay
plant you in the ground,
then by spring you’ll emerge again
as a seedling. How’s that sound?
You will grow and grow, year after year,
until you’re as tall as me.
Times may get tough, but I’ll help you out,
sharing my food with you if need be.
Someday, your branches will grow,
your canopy spread.
Someday, you too will have truffles
and squirrels
and birds.
You will give them all a home.
Someday, you will be
a towering oak tree like me
and have acorns of your own.
But first,
you have to let yourself
be planted in the ground.”
Little Acorn watched the scampering squirrels
and the cawing jays, as the sun set in the sky.
Maybe change won’t be so bad,
he thought with a quiet sigh.
“Hey, Mister Squirrel,” he called out at last,
“will you bury me?”
A SCOOP,
a PLOP—
and just like that,
he was waiting for spring.
