The Linen

In a sunny field, a patch of flax grew tall and straight. Its tiny blue flowers opened to the sky like little wings. The flax listened to the wind and to the lark singing above. “How bright the world is,” the flax whispered. “People say I am fine and useful. I think they are right. I am happy!”

The sun warmed the flax, and the rain made it strong. But one day, hands came and pulled the flax up by the roots. “Oh!” cried the flax. “That hurts!” The flax looked back at the soft soil it loved, but there was no going back. “Still,” it told itself, “one must bear some pain to become something.”

The flax was soaked in water, pressed and beaten, combed and heckled until its fibers were loose and soft. It was not easy. “This is the hardest thing of all,” the flax sighed. “But perhaps it is leading somewhere.” Then the spinning wheel began to hum. “Whirr, whirr!” sang the wheel, as the flax turned into long, smooth thread. “I am becoming something new,” the flax thought.

Next came the loom. “Clack! clack!” went the shuttle, flying back and forth. The threads crossed and held together, and the flax felt itself change again. “I am linen now!” it cried. “What a beautiful pattern! What a fine, strong cloth!”

The linen was laid out on green grass to bleach in sun and rain. When the showers came, the linen shivered. When the sun returned, it warmed and brightened. “Whiter and whiter,” it said. “Better and better. I have been blessed!”

After that, scissors snipped and needles stitched. The needle pricked a little, it is true, but the linen did not mind. “This is part of it,” the linen said. Soon it had become fine shirts and shining tablecloths, napkins and soft sheets. People touched it and smiled. “What snow-white linen!” they said. The linen felt proud—but not foolishly proud. “I have worked and waited,” it thought. “Now I can be useful.”

Time passed, as it always does. The linen was washed and worn, spread on tables and folded into drawers, shaken out in the sunlight and warmed by hands. It listened to laughter and quiet talk and bedtime songs. It loved its work.

But fine things cannot stay new forever. The linen grew thin. “You are worn through,” said the scissors kindly. Snip, snip! The old shirts and cloths became neat rags. “Is this the end?” the linen wondered.

“No,” it answered itself, remembering the field, the wheel, the loom, the bleaching green. “I have changed so many times. Perhaps this is not an end at all.”

Off the rags went to the paper mill. There the hammers thumped, and the water churned. The linen was pounded, boiled, and stirred until it lost its old shape entirely. “This is very hard work,” it said. “But I have learned something: hard work often leads to good.”

It was right. The fibers settled, smooth and even. Presses squeezed and rollers shone. When the linen saw itself again, it could hardly believe it. “Paper!” it gasped. “I am paper—white, clean, fine!”

Soon a pen came scratching over the smooth sheets. A poet was writing. Words flowed—bright thoughts, sweet songs, kind stories. The paper listened and held every line. “What a joy,” it murmured. “I carry songs. I carry comfort. I am not only useful; I am meaningful.”

People read the poems. Some smiled; some wiped away a tear; some felt braver and kinder. “Beautiful!” they said. “We must keep these words.” The paper trembled with happiness. “This is the best of all my days,” it thought.

But paper, too, grows old. A few sheets were saved, and the poems were remembered. Other pages became crumpled and torn. One chilly evening, a maid took the worn papers to the stove. “You have served well,” she said, and struck a spark.

The flame caught. “Is this the end?” the paper asked, for the last time.

“It is a new change,” the flame replied, bright and quick. The paper flared into light. It did not scream, for it had learned courage. “I am rising!” it thought, as it lifted in tiny sparks and soft smoke up the chimney, out into the night. The stars looked down; the wind carried the smoke gently. “How high we are!” the paper-married-to-flame whispered. “The more we have borne, the higher we rise.”

The next morning, white ash rested where the fire had been. The ash did not feel sad. It had been flax and linen, rags and paper, poems and fire, and now something quiet and new. The sun touched it kindly. The words the paper had held were not lost—they lived on in hearts and voices. The joy the linen had given at bright tables and warm beds was not lost either. Good things do not vanish; they change and travel.

The tale of the flax was told here and there. Children heard it and looked at blue flowers in fields. Grown-ups heard it and thought of how many times a life can turn and still be good. The flax had been right from the beginning: one must bear, one must hope, and one will become something.

“So,” said the wind, rustling through a fresh patch of flax in another summer, “are you happy?”

“Yes,” whispered the new blue flowers, “we are happy. We do not know what we shall be, but we know it will be something worthwhile. We have seen how the story goes.”

And the sun smiled, as it had smiled before, on the field, on the linen in drawers, on the pages in hands, and even on the soft ashes, for the sun knows how many shapes goodness can take.