One day my little sister got up very early. My mother was in the kitchen. She wanted to make breakfast for the family, and she did not see that my little sister was not in her bed.
My naughty little sister went to the shed and took a little spade. Then she went to the garden. It was autumn. There were many red and yellow leaves in the garden. There were many pretty flowers in the garden, too. My little sister went to the flowerbed.
But she did not look at the beautiful flowers, which my father liked to plant. She trampled the flowers under her feet and made a hole in the flowerbed.
Do you know why my little sister made the hole in the flowerbed? She wanted to plant an acorn. She had a nice brown acorn in her hand. So she made a hole in the flowerbed and put the acorn in the hole. Then she put a short stick near it.
Do you know why she did that?
She wanted to know the place where the acorn was. She was a clever little girl, wasn’t she?
My little sister went to this place after breakfast and before dinner and after dinner. She took the acorn out and then she put it back again. Do you know why she took the acorn out? She wanted to see it grow.
In the evening Father came home and he saw his flowers. He was very angry.
-“You bad, bad girl,” said my father. “Why did you trample my flowers?”
-“I did not want to trample your flowers. I wanted to plant my acorn. I wanted to see it grow.” And my little sister began to cry.
-“Your acorn won’t grow if you take it out,” said my father. “Give it to me.” Father took a bottle, put some water in it and then put the acorn into it.
-“Now you can see it grow,” said Father.
My little sister put the bottle with the acorn at the window. She looked at it all the time, but it did not grow. She put the bottle near her bed and looked at it in the morning and in the evening. But it did not grow.
-“Put the bottle at the window and go and play with your doll,” said my mother.
My little sister put the bottle at the window and went to play with her doll. Soon she forgot about her bottle.
One day she looked at the bottle and saw a little green shoot.
-“I see a little green shoot,” cried my sister.
She was very glad and showed her bottle-tree to everybody.
-“Now we can plant the acorn,” said my father.
He went to the shed, took the spade and planted the acorn near our house.
The bottle-tree grew and grew, and now it is a big tree, bigger than my sister who is also big now.