"It seems a pity if a thing can't stop growing and be let alone and die if it wants to!" But though it grumbled a trifle at first, it felt so much better after Hester and her mother had spent the afternoon caring for it, that it began to grow a little just out of gratitude,--and what do you think happened?
"George Washington came and chopped it down with his little hatchet," said an eager person in front.
"The lame girl came to look at it," sang out a small chap in the back row.
No, (the young girl answered, with an irrepressible smile), it was a cherry-tree that George Washington chopped, Lucy; and I told you, Horatio, that the poor lame girl could n't walk a step.

But the sun began to shine,--that is the first thing that happened.

Day after day the sun shone, because everything seems to help the people and the things that help themselves.

The rich earth gave everything it had to give for sap, and the warm air dried up the ugly moss that spoiled the beauty of its trunk.
Then the lilac-bush was glad again, and it could hardly grow fast enough, because it knew it would be behind time, at any rate; for of course it could n't stand still, grumbling and doing nothing for weeks, and get its work done as soon as the other plants.

But it made sap all clay long, and the buds grew into tiny leaves, and the leaves into larger ones, and then it began to group its flower-buds among the branches.