As he fell asleep, Little Pine thought about the young human girl who came to the forest to make paintings of the lake and trees. In his dreams, he imagined seeing the forest through her eyes. He paid attention to the shapes and colors of the woods as he never had before.
The next day, as he strolled through the woods after breakfast, it was as if he was seeing everything with new eyes. Colors that he never noticed before suddenly came alive. He saw new depth in the textures of things. Patches of tree bark looked like little masterpieces.
He walked in a trance of wonder, feeling almost as if he were in a different world.
A moss-covered tree stump caught his eye, and he looked at the collection of fallen leaves, twigs and pine needles nestled in its hollow. It reminded him of a bird somehow, landing on its nest. How beautiful all the colors seemed to him, and how perfect their arrangement!
When he came across a patch of the drums that the elves had decorated for the Festival, he was amazed by their artistry. He had liked them before, and thought they were quite pretty, but now they nearly took his breath away and filled him with so much delight that he began twirling and twirling, and shouting “YeeeeHah!” just to release his joy.
The blessing in the gift that his mother had given him last night—the painting of his ancestor’s pine cone, the story of the little human girl—was larger than he had supposed. It brought with it a whole new vision of his world, one filled with more beauty than he had ever imagined a world could contain.