r lonely. But soon he heard singing in the forest below,
and saw something bright moving amongst the trees. Presently he saw a
blue and yellow banner, and he knew by the songs and the merry chatter
that it was being borne at the head of a procession. On it came, up the
winding path; he wondered where it and those who followed it were going.
He couldn't believe that anybody would come up to such an ugly, desolate
waste as the place where he sat. But the banner was nearing the forest
border, and behind it marched many happy people for whom it had led the
way. Suddenly there was life and movement all over the mountain plain;
after that there was so much for the boy to see that he didn't have a
dull moment.

FOREST DAY

On the mountain's broad back, where Gorgo left Thumbietot, there had
been a forest fire ten years before. Since that time the charred trees
had been felled and removed, and the great fire-swept area had begun to
deck itself with green along the edges, where it skirted the healthy
forest. However, the larger part of the top was still barren and
appallingly desolate. Charred stumps, standing sentinel-like between the
rock ledges, bore witness that once there had been a fine forest here;
but no fresh roots sprang from the ground.

One day in the early summer all the children in the parish had assembled
in front of the schoolhouse near the fire-swept mountain. Each child
carried either a spade or a hoe on its shoulder, and a basket of food in
its hand. As soon as all were assembled, they marched in a long
procession toward the forest. The banner came first, with the teachers
on either side of it; then followed a couple of foresters and a wagon
load of pine shrubs and spruce seeds; then the children.

The procession did not pause in any of the birch groves near the
settlements, but marched on deep into the forest. As it moved along, the
foxes stuck their heads out of the lairs in astonishment, and wondered
what kind of backwoods people these were. As they marched past old coal
pits where charcoal kilns were fired every autumn, the cross-beaks
twisted their hooked bills, and asked one another what kind of coalers
these might be who were now thronging the forest.

Finally, the procession reached the big, burnt mountain plain. The rocks
had been stripped of the fine twin-flower creepers that once covered
them; they had been robbed of the pretty silver moss and the attractive
reindeer moss. Around the dark water