The Trees and the Ax

Once upon a time a man came into a forest. He said to the trees, "Will you give me a piece of hard wood ?" The tree said, "Yes, we'll give you a good price of hard wood." He was very glad to get a good piece of wood. He hurried home with it. At once he made a new handle of his ax¹. Then he went to the forest again and began to cut down all the best trees in the forest. The trees were very sad. They said to one another, "We suffer for our own foolishness."