The Boy and His Tree

Little Balai cannot bear to see a tree cut down or a flower plucked before its time. When he raises a silk-cotton sapling with his own care, it grows tall and wild - and he will not let even his uncle touch it. But what becomes of a tree so loved when the boy who tended it is sent away for a better education? This is one of eighteen stories in a classic collection, rewritten in English from the original Bengali, carrying the love, sadness and longing that ran through Tagore's storytelling - along with quiet glimpses of the customs and social life of an earlier India.