A SPRING of pure water bubbled up from the ground in the midst of a wood, but the trees, after sheltering it for a season, began to complain of it as an intruder.

“You take up too much of our room,” they said, “where more trees might grow. Then, our underbrush, that we depend on for the future, is trampled down and spoiled by the animals that come trooping every day to your side. You have no right to occupy our space, and we warn you to be gone.”

Hearing this, the spring sent word down to its hidden source, deep in the ground, bidding its streams seek another outlet in a grove near by. Soon afterward its waters[187]
[188] began to disappear from the wood, sinking lower and lower, until, instead of the glassy mirror in which the trees used to see their branches reflected, only a dusty hollow remained. Nor was this all. Hot and dry weather came on soon after, and the trees, missing the moisture about their roots, many of them lost their freshness and verdure, and some of them died.

Meanwhile, the spring reappeared in the grove, with waters more abundant than ever, and the trees there grew thicker and greener, and bushes and wild flowers sprang up on every side. There, too, the birds and the beasts, deserting the woods where they had formerly gone, thronged to drink and rest in its shade.

Because we fear a little trouble and expense, or, it may be, the humbling of our pride, we let those pass by our doors who would profit us in the best things and perhaps prove to be angels entertained unawares.