Father Payne by A.C. Benson

I walked one afternoon with Father Payne just as winter turned to spring, in the pastures. There was a mound at the corner of one of his fields, on which grew a row of beech trees of which Father Payne was particularly fond. He pointed out to me to-day how the most southerly of the trees, exposed as it was to the full force of the wind, grew lower and sturdier than the rest, and how as the trees progressed towards the north, each one profiting more by the shelter of his comrades, they grew taller and more graceful. "I like the way that stout little fellow at the end grows," said Father Payne. "He doesn't know, I suppose, that he is protecting the rest, and giving them room to expand. But he holds on; and though he isn't so tall, he is bulkier and denser than his brethren. He knows that he has to bear the brunt of the wind, so he puts out no sail. He just devotes himself to standing four-square -- he is not going to be bullied!

He would like to be as smooth and as shapely as the rest, but he knows his own business, and he has adapted himself, like a sensible fellow, to his rough conditions."