Tree Girl Read Online Free PDF Page A

arrived—all kinds, from all directions. Egrets, gulls, cormorants, ducks, pelicans, and even a huge, stiff-legged crane, landed right on the beach. All day long they strutted down the shore, nibbling at minnows in the tide pools and slapping the air with their wings. From sunrise to sunset they spluttered and squawked and honked at one another. And also at Eagle, who marched among them like a dwarf among giants.
    But the greatest change of all happened inside the cottage. It started when Anna made a new pillow for the master, putting the downy feathers she’d found on the beach into a sack of woven grass. And it kept happening when she changed the straw in their sleeping pallets, hung onion and garlic from the main post, cleaned out the hearth, and fixed the driftwood chairs. She patched up the sealskin that held their fresh water. And gathered fresh mint from the stream that flowed out of the forest.She even found a butterfly’s cocoon and draped it on the shutter.
    At first, the old man didn’t seem to notice. Or say anything if he did. But slowly Anna began to sense a change in him.
    He seemed to curse a little less in the evenings, and to linger at the cottage longer in the mornings. He asked her to sing more and more—which she gladly did. Sometimes he gave her the bigger portion of fish, or helped her chop scallops for the sea broth. And once, to Anna’s complete surprise, he squeezed her shoulder gently before going out the door.
    The cocoon opened. A pink striped lady-of-the-tides climbed out, with wings all wet and crumpled—like newly sprouted ferns. And for several days, that butterfly flitted around the room. It darted over Eagle’s head, ignoring all the whistles, and sipped at Anna’s bowl of flowers. Once it even landed on the master’s ear—and then laughter, right out loud, shook the cottage walls.
    Then came a day when the master stayed home from fishing to fix the rotten planks in his boat. Anna worked alongside him. While she gathered the sap from Old Burl’s bark and boiled it till soft,he chopped new slats of driftwood with his axe. Then together they fit the wood into the hull and worked the sticky sap all around, plugging any gaps they could find.
    This was Anna’s favorite part. How she loved the feel of the wood! Even after years of being worn and beaten by the sea, its grain still ran true. And she wondered if each different wood had a special grain of its own. The way different people have footprints of their own.
    The old man looked up from the hull. “Sing to me, would ye now?”
    And so she smiled, and sang:
    Wood on the water, boat on the waves
,
    Gray gulls a-soaring high:
    I am at sea.
    Salt on my tongue, wind on my brow
,
    Endless horizons here:
    Now I am free.
    When she finished, she ran her fingers along the newly fitted plank. “It’s good to work with you, Master.”
    “Aye,” he replied without looking up from thehull. He blew a puff of greenish smoke from his pipe. “One day mayhaps ye’ll come fishin’ with me. Ye can haul the nets if ye like.”
    Anna started. He’d never before offered to take her along in the boat. “Oh, I do like, I do!” She ran to his side and hugged his neck. “Please let me come!”
    “All right, girl. When ye be jest a bit older.”
    She released him and skipped back to her end of the boat. She danced a pair of perfect twirls on the beach, spraying sand against the hull. And another twirl after that, just for good measure. Then, before starting back to work, she smiled at the master. “You’re a much better friend than that bear could ever be.”
    The old man froze. He dropped his chunk of sap and stared at her, his face suddenly as hard as his coral pipe. “Did ye say…a bear?”
    Meekly, she nodded.
    His eyes flashed. “Have ye been goin’ into the forest? While I be gone to sea? Tell me the truth, girl!”
    “Aye, b-but it was just—”
    “None o’ yer excuses!” He slammed his hand against the boat. “Or yer lies!