The Old Tree and the New Nest
- 3 minute read
- Ages 5-9
- Bedtime Stories
There was an old neem tree at the end of a lane who had stopped growing a long time ago.
He was not ill. He had simply finished. He had got as tall as he was going to get and as wide as he was going to get, and now he stood there and did the same thing every year, which was leaves in spring and shade all summer and a great mess of them in the road in autumn.
He thought about this sometimes, in the slow way trees think.
Everything around him was still going somewhere. The lane got busier. The houses got taller. A young peepal on the corner had come up from nothing in eleven years and was already looking over the wall.
And the neem tree stood still and did his three things.
The bird
One spring a bird came and built a nest in him.
She chose a fork about two thirds of the way up, on the side away from the road, sheltered by the branch above it and hidden from below by a screen of leaves. She took four days over it.
Then there were eggs. Then there were four small loud things that opened their mouths at everything, and did that for weeks, and then began to move about on the branch, and then one at a time went off the edge and did not fall.
By August the nest was empty.
The next spring
She came back the next spring.
So did another bird, on the other side. And a pair of squirrels took the hollow where a branch had come off in a storm years ago, and a colony of ants used the deep grooves of the bark as a road, going up all day and coming down all night, and never seemed to stop.
Under him the fruit seller set out his cart every morning in the shade, in the same spot, and had done for nine years.
What he was for
The old neem tree understood something that year, slowly, the way trees do.
He had thought that finishing growing meant he had finished.
But nothing that lived in him needed him to be taller. They needed him to be exactly where he was, exactly as he was, and to still be there next year, and the year after that.
That was the whole job.
It turned out he had only just started.
Moral of the story
Being finished growing is not the same as being finished. A great deal depends on things that simply stay where they are.
Questions and answers
- Why had the neem tree stopped growing?
He was not ill. He had simply reached his full size and had nothing left to grow into.
- What made him feel left behind?
Everything around him was still changing, including a young peepal tree that had grown up quickly on the corner.
- Who came to live in the tree?
A bird and her four chicks, then another bird, a pair of squirrels in a hollow, and a colony of ants living in the bark.
- Who else depended on him?
The fruit seller, who had set out his cart in the tree's shade every morning for nine years.
- What did the tree finally understand?
That nothing living in him needed him to grow taller. They needed him to stay exactly where he was, year after year.
Word meanings
- neem
- A large Indian tree with bitter leaves, often planted for shade.
- peepal
- Another large Indian tree, with heart-shaped leaves.
- fork
- The place where a branch splits into two.
- colony
- A large group of insects or animals living together.
Questions about The Old Tree and the New Nest
What is the moral of The Old Tree and the New Nest?
That staying reliably in place is valuable in itself. Growth is not the only way to matter.
Is this story suitable for bedtime?
Yes. It is slow on purpose, nothing alarming happens, and it ends on a settled thought rather than an exciting one.
Why choose a neem tree?
Neem trees are among the most common shade trees in India and Pakistan, so most children reading this will have seen one.
What can an older child take from this?
It is a gentle way into thinking about grandparents, or about anyone whose value is in being dependably present rather than in doing new things.