Read "The Acorn" by Elizabeth Rundle Charles online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
"WHEN will my training begin? " said the acorn to itself, as it unfolded / its delicately-carved cup and saucer on the branch of an old oak on / the edge of a forest. "I understand I am to be an oak one day, like / my father. All the acorns say that is what we are to be, but there / certainly seems little chance of it at present. I have been sitting / here for no one knows how many days, and I feel no change, except that / I look less pretty than I did when I was young and green, and begin to / feel rather dry, and shrivelled, and old. At this rate, I do not see / much chance of my becoming an oak, or anything else but an old, dry / acorn. When will my training begin?"
As it meditated thus, a strong breeze sighed mournfully through the / autumn woods, and shook down many brown leaves from the old oak, and / with them the acorn.