"Poor little creature!" they said, one after another, as they came up. "We can't sing, certainly; but we have a sounding board, or something of the kind, within us, though we don't talk about it."

"But I can talk," said the Portuguese duck. "I'll do something for the little fellow; it's my duty." So she stepped into the watering trough and beat her wings upon the water so strongly that the little bird was nearly drowned. But the duck meant it kindly. "That is a good deed," she said; "I hope the others will take example from it."

"Tweet, tweet!" said the little bird. One of his wings was broken and he found it difficult to shake himself, but he quite understood that the bath was meant kindly, so hesaid, "You are very kind-hearted, madam." But he did not wish for a second bath.

"I have never thought about my heart," replied the Portuguese duck; "but I know that I love all my fellow creatures, except the cat, and n.o.body can expect me to love her, for she ate up two of my ducklings. But pray make yourself at home; it is easy to make oneself comfortable. I myself am from a foreign country, as you may see by my bearing and my feathery dress. My husband is a native of these parts; he's not of my race, but I am not proud on that account. If any one here can understand you, I may say positively that I am that person."

"She's quite full of portulak," said a little common duck, who was witty. All the common ducks considered the word "portulak" a good joke, for it sounded like "Portugal." They nudged each other and said, "Quack! that was witty!"

Then the other ducks began to notice the newcomer. "The Portuguese has certainly a great flow of language," they said to the little bird. "For our part, we don't care to fill our beaks with such long words, but we sympathize with you quite as much. If we don't do anything else, we can walk about with you everywhere; that is the best we can do."

"You have a lovely voice," said one of the eldest ducks; "it must be a great satisfaction to you to be able to give asmuch pleasure as you do. I am certainly no judge of your singing, so I keep my beak shut, which is better than talking nonsense as others do."

"Don't plague him so," interrupted the Portuguese duck; "he requires rest and nursing. My little singing bird, do you wish me to prepare another bath for you?"

"Oh, no! no! pray let me be dry," implored the little bird.

"The water cure is the only remedy for me when I am not well," said the Portuguese. "Amus.e.m.e.nt, too, is very beneficial. The fowls from the neighborhood will soon be here to pay you a visit. There are two Cochin-Chinese among them; they wear feathers on their legs and are well educated. They have been brought from a great distance, and consequently I treat them with greater respect than I do the others."

Then the fowls arrived, and the c.o.c.k was polite enough to keep from being rude. "You are a real songster," he said, "and you do as much with your little voice as it is possible to do; but more noise and shrillness is necessary if one wishes others to know who he is."

The two Chinese were quite enchanted with the appearance of the singing bird. His feathers had been much ruffled by his bath, so that he seemed to them quitelike a tiny Chinese fowl. "He's charming," they said to each other, and began a conversation with him in whispers, using the most aristocratic Chinese dialect.

"We are of the same race as yourself," they said. "The ducks, even the Portuguese, are all aquatic birds, as you must have noticed. You do not know us yet--very few, even of the fowls, know us or give themselves the trouble to make our acquaintance, though we were born to occupy a higher position in society than most of them. But that does not disturb us; we quietly go our way among them. Their ideas are certainly not ours, for we look at the bright side of things and only speak of what is good, although that is sometimes difficult to find where none exists. Except ourselves and the c.o.c.k, there is not one in the yard who can be called talented or polite. It cannot be said even of the ducks, and we warn you, little bird, not to trust that one yonder, with the short tail feathers, for she is cunning. Then the curiously marked one, with the crooked stripes on her wings, is a mischief-maker and never lets any one have the last word, though she is always in the wrong. The fat duck yonder speaks evil of every one, and that is against our principles; if we have nothing good to tell, we close our beaks. The Portuguese is the only one who has had any education and with whom we can a.s.sociate, but she is pa.s.sionate and talks too much about Portugal.""I wonder what those two Chinese are whispering about,"

whispered one duck to another. "They are always doing it, and it annoys me. We never speak to them."

Now the drake came up, and he thought the little singing bird was a sparrow. "Well, I don't understand the difference," he said; "it appears to me all the same. He's only a plaything, and if people will have playthings, why let them, I say."

"Don't take any notice of what he says," whispered the Portuguese; "he is very well in matters of business, and with him business is first. Now I shall lie down and have a little rest. It is a duty we owe to ourselves, so that we shall be nice and fat when we come to be embalmed with sage and onions and apples."

So she laid herself down in the sun and winked with one eye. She had a very comfortable place and felt so at ease that she fell asleep. The little singing bird busied himself for some time with his broken wing, and at last he too lay down, quite close to his protectress. The sun shone warm and bright, and he found it a very good place. But the fowls of the neighborhood were all awake, and, to tell the truth, they had paid a visit to the duck yard solely to find food for themselves. The Chinese were the first to leave, and the other fowls soon followed them.The witty little duck said of the Portuguese that "the old lady" was getting to be quite a "doting ducky." All the other ducks laughed at this. "'Doting ducky,'" they whispered; "oh, that's too witty!" Then they repeated the joke about "portulak" and declared it was most amusing. After that they all lay down to have a nap.

They had been lying asleep for quite a while, when suddenly something was thrown into the yard for them to eat. It came down with such a bang that the whole company started up and clapped their wings. The Portuguese awoke, too, and rushed over to the other side of the yard. In doing this she trod upon the little singing bird.

"Tweet," he cried; "you trod very hard upon me, madam."

"Well, then, why do you lie in my way?" she retorted. "You must not be so touchy. I have nerves of my own, but I do not cry 'Tweet.'"

"Don't be angry," said the little bird; "the 'Tweet' slipped out of my beak before I knew it."

The Portuguese did not listen to him, but began eating as fast as she could, and made a good meal. When she had finished she lay down again, and the little bird, who wished to be amiable, began to sing:"Chirp and twitter, The dewdrops glitter, In the hours of sunny spring; I'll sing my best, Till I go to rest, With my head behind my wing."

"Now I want rest after my dinner," said the Portuguese.

"You must conform to the rules of the place while you are here. I want to sleep now."

The little bird was quite taken aback, for he meant it kindly.

When madam awoke afterwards, there he stood before her with a little corn he had found, and laid it at her feet; but as she had not slept well, she was naturally in a bad temper.

"Give that to a chicken," she said, "and don't be always standing in my way."

"Why are you angry with me?" replied the little singing bird; "what have I done?"

"Done!" repeated the Portuguese duck; "your mode of expressing yourself is not very polite. I must call your attention to that fact."

"There was sunshine here yesterday," said the little bird, "but to-day it is cloudy and the air is heavy."

"You know very little about the weather, I fancy," she retorted; "the day is not over yet. Don't stand there looking so stupid.""But you are looking at me just as the wicked eyes looked when I fell into the yard yesterday."

"Impertinent creature!" exclaimed the Portuguese duck.

"Would you compare me with the cat--that beast of prey?

There's not a drop of malicious blood in me. I've taken your part, and now I'll teach you better manners." So saying, she made a bite at the little singing-bird's head, and he fell to the ground dead. "Now whatever is the meaning of this?" she said. "Could he not bear even such a little peck as I gave him? Then, certainly, he was not made for this world. I've been like a mother to him, I know that, for I've a good heart."

Then the c.o.c.k from the neighboring yard stuck his head in and crowed with steam-engine power.

"You'll kill me with your crowing," she cried. "It's all your fault. He's lost his life, and I'm very near losing mine."

"There's not much of him lying there," observed the c.o.c.k.

"Speak of him with respect," said the Portuguese duck, "for he had manners and education, and he could sing. He was affectionate and gentle, and those are as rare qualities in animals as in those who call themselves human beings."Then all the ducks came crowding round the little dead bird. Ducks have strong pa.s.sions, whether they feel envy or pity. There was nothing to envy here, so they all showed a great deal of pity. So also did the two Chinese. "We shall never again have such a singing bird among us; he was almost a Chinese," they whispered, and then they wept with such a noisy, clucking sound that all the other fowls clucked too. But the ducks went about with redder eyes afterwards. "We have hearts of our own," they said; "n.o.body can deny that."

"Hearts!" repeated the Portuguese. "Indeed you have--almost as tender as the ducks in Portugal."

"Let us think of getting something to satisfy our hunger,"

said the drake; "that's the most important business. If one of our toys is broken, why, we have plenty more."

THE SNOW MAN.

"IT IS so delightfully cold that it makes my whole body crackle," said the Snow Man. "This is just the kind of wind to blow life into one. How that great red thing up there is staring at me!" He meant the sun, which was just setting.

"It shall not make me wink. I shall manage to keep the pieces."He had two triangular pieces of tile in his head instead of eyes, and his mouth, being made of an old broken rake, was therefore furnished with teeth. He had been brought into existence amid the joyous shouts of boys, the jingling of sleigh bells, and the slashing of whips.

The sun went down, and the full moon rose, large, round, and clear, shining in the deep blue.

"There it comes again, from the other side," said the Snow Man, who supposed the sun was showing itself once more.

"Ah, I have cured it of staring. Now it may hang up there and shine, so that I may see myself. If I only knew how to manage to move away from this place--I should so like to move! If I could, I would slide along yonder on the ice, as I have seen the boys do; but I don't understand how. I don't even know how to run."

"Away, away!" barked the old yard dog. He was quite hoa.r.s.e and could not p.r.o.nounce "Bow-wow" properly. He had once been an indoor dog and lain by the fire, and he had been hoa.r.s.e ever since. "The sun will make you run some day. I saw it, last winter, make your predecessor run, and his predecessor before him. Away, away! They all have to go."

"I don't understand you, comrade," said the Snow Man. "Is that thing up yonder to teach me to run? I saw it runningitself, a little while ago, and now it has come creeping up from the other side."

"You know nothing at all," replied the yard dog. "But then, you've only lately been patched up. What you see yonder is the moon, and what you saw before was the sun. It will come again to-morrow and most likely teach you to run down into the ditch by the well, for I think the weather is going to change. I can feel such p.r.i.c.ks and stabs in my left leg that I am sure there is going to be a change."

"I don't understand him," said the Snow Man to himself, "but I have a feeling that he is talking of something very disagreeable. The thing that stared so hard just now, which he calls the sun, is not my friend; I can feel that too."

"Away, away!" barked the yard dog, and then he turned round three times and crept into his kennel to sleep.

There really was a change in the weather. Toward morning a thick fog covered the whole country and a keen wind arose, so that the cold seemed to freeze one's bones. But when the sun rose, a splendid sight was to be seen. Trees and bushes were covered with h.o.a.rfrost and looked like a forest of white coral, while on every twig glittered frozen dewdrops. The many delicate forms, concealed in summer by luxuriant foliage, were now clearly defined and looked like glittering lacework. A white radiance glistened fromevery twig. The birches, waving in the wind, looked as full of life as in summer and as wondrously beautiful. Where the sun shone, everything glittered and sparkled as if diamond dust had been strewn about; and the snowy carpet of the earth seemed covered with diamonds from which gleamed countless lights, whiter even than the snow itself.

"This is really beautiful," said a girl who had come into the garden with a young friend; and they both stood still near the Snow Man, contemplating the glittering scene.

"Summer cannot show a more beautiful sight," she exclaimed, while her eyes sparkled.

"And we can't have such a fellow as this in the summer-time," replied the young man, pointing to the Snow Man. "He is capital."

The girl laughed and nodded at the Snow Man, then tripped away over the snow with her friend. The snow creaked and crackled beneath her feet, as if she had been treading on starch.

"Who are those two?" asked the Snow Man of the yard dog. "You have been here longer than I; do you know them?""Of course I know them," replied the yard dog; "the girl has stroked my back many times, and the young man has often given me a bone of meat. I never bite those two."

"But what are they?" asked the Snow Man.

"They are lovers," he replied. "They will go and live in the same kennel, by and by, and gnaw at the same bone.

Away, away!"

"Are they the same kind of beings as you and I?" asked the Snow Man.

"Well, they belong to the master," retorted the yard dog.

"Certainly people know very little who were only born yesterday. I can see that in you. I have age and experience. I know every one here in the house, and I know there was once a time when I did not lie out here in the cold, fastened to a chain. Away, away!"

"The cold is delightful," said the Snow Man. "But do tell me, tell me; only you must not clank your chain so, for it jars within me when you do that."

"Away, away!" barked the yard dog. "I'll tell you: they said I was a pretty little fellow, once; then I used to lie in a velvet-covered chair, up at the master's house, and sit in the mistress's lap; they used to kiss my nose, and wipe mypaws with an embroidered handkerchief, and I was called 'Ami, dear Ami, sweet Ami.' But after a while I grew too big for them, and they sent me away to the housekeeper's room; so I came to live on the lower story. You can look into the room from where you stand, and see where I was once master--for I was, indeed, master to the housekeeper.

It was a much smaller room than those upstairs, but I was more comfortable, for I was not continually being taken hold of and pulled about by the children, as I had been. I received quite as good food and even better. I had my own cushion, and there was a stove--it is the finest thing in the world at this season of the year. I used to go under the stove and lie down. Ah, I still dream of that stove. Away, away!"

"Does a stove look beautiful?" asked the Snow Man. "Is it at all like me?"

"It is just the opposite of you," said the dog. "It's as black as a crow and has a long neck and a bra.s.s k.n.o.b; it eats firewood, and that makes fire spurt out of its mouth. One has to keep on one side or under it, to be comfortable. You can see it through the window from where you stand."

Then the Snow Man looked, and saw a bright polished thing with a bra.s.s k.n.o.b, and fire gleaming from the lower part of it. The sight of this gave the Snow Man a strange sensation; it was very odd, he knew not what it meant, andhe could not account for it. But there are people who are not men of snow who understand what the feeling is. "And why did you leave her?" asked the Snow Man, for it seemed to him that the stove must be of the female s.e.x.

"How could you give up such a comfortable place?"

"I was obliged to," replied the yard dog. "They turned me out of doors and chained me up here. I had bitten the youngest of my master's sons in the leg, because he kicked away the bone I was gnawing. 'Bone for bone,' I thought. But they were very angry, and since that time I have been fastened to a chain and have lost my voice.

Don't you hear how hoa.r.s.e I am? Away, away! I can't talk like other dogs any more. Away, away! That was the end of it all."

But the Snow Man was no longer listening. He was looking into the housekeeper's room on the lower story, where the stove, which was about the same size as the Snow Man himself, stood on its four iron legs. "What a strange crackling I feel within me," he said. "Shall I ever get in there? It is an innocent wish, and innocent wishes are sure to be fulfilled. I must go in there and lean against her, even if I have to break the window."

"You must never go in there," said the yard dog, "for if you approach the stove, you will melt away, away.""I might as well go," said the Snow Man, "for I think I am breaking up as it is."

During the whole day the Snow Man stood looking in through the window, and in the twilight hour the room became still more inviting, for from the stove came a gentle glow, not like the sun or the moon; it was only the kind of radiance that can come from a stove when it has been well fed. When the door of the stove was opened, the flames darted out of its mouth,--as is customary with all stoves,--and the light of the flames fell with a ruddy gleam directly on the face and breast of the Snow Man. "I can endure it no longer," said he. "How beautiful it looks when it stretches out its tongue!"

The night was long, but it did not appear so to the Snow Man, who stood there enjoying his own reflections and crackling with the cold. In the morning the window-panes of the housekeeper's room were covered with ice. They were the most beautiful ice flowers any Snow Man could desire, but they concealed the stove. These window-panes would not thaw, and he could see nothing of the stove, which he pictured to himself as if it had been a beautiful human being. The snow crackled and the wind whistled around him; it was just the kind of frosty weather a Snow Man ought to enjoy thoroughly. But he did not enjoy it. How, indeed, could he enjoy anything when he was so stove-sick?"That is a terrible disease for a Snow Man to have," said the yard dog. "I have suffered from it myself, but I got over it. Away, away!" he barked, and then added, "The weather is going to change."

The weather did change. It began to thaw, and as the warmth increased, the Snow Man decreased. He said nothing and made no complaint, which is a sure sign.

One morning he broke and sank down altogether; and behold! where he had stood, something that looked like a broomstick remained sticking up in the ground. It was the pole round which the boys had built him.

"Ah, now I understand why he had such a great longing for the stove," said the yard dog. "Why, there's the shovel that is used for cleaning out the stove, fastened to the pole. The Snow Man had a stove sc.r.a.per in his body; that was what moved him so. But it is all over now. Away, away!"

And soon the winter pa.s.sed. "Away, away!" barked the hoa.r.s.e yard dog, but the girls in the house sang: "Come from your fragrant home, green thyme; Stretch your soft branches, willow tree; The months are bringing the sweet spring-time, When the lark in the sky sings joyfully.

Come, gentle sun, while the cuckoo sings, And I'll mock his note in my wanderings."And n.o.body thought any more of the Snow Man.

THE FARMYARD c.o.c.k AND THE WEATHERc.o.c.k.

THERE were once two c.o.c.ks; one of them stood on a dunghill, the other on the roof. Both were conceited, but the question is, Which of the two was the more useful?

A wooden part.i.tion divided the poultry yard from another yard, in which lay a heap of manure sheltering a cuc.u.mber bed. In this bed grew a large cuc.u.mber, which was fully aware that it was a plant that should be reared in a hotbed.

"It is the privilege of birth," said the Cuc.u.mber to itself. "All cannot be born cuc.u.mbers; there must be other kinds as well. The fowls, the ducks, and the cattle in the next yard are all different creatures, and there is the yard c.o.c.k--I can look up to him when he is on the wooden part.i.tion. He is certainly of much greater importance than the weatherc.o.c.k, who is so highly placed, and who can't even creak, much less crow--besides, he has neither hens nor chickens, and thinks only of himself, and perspires verdigris. But the yard c.o.c.k is something like a c.o.c.k. His gait is like a dance, and his crowing is music, and wherever he goes it is instantly known. What a trumpeter he is! If he would only come in here! Even if he were to eat me up,stalk and all, it would be a pleasant death." So said the Cuc.u.mber.

During the night the weather became very bad; hens, chickens, and even the c.o.c.k himself sought shelter. The wind blew down with a crash the part.i.tion between the two yards, and the tiles came tumbling from the roof, but the weatherc.o.c.k stood firm. He did not even turn round; in fact, he could not, although he was fresh and newly cast. He had been born full grown and did not at all resemble the birds, such as the sparrows and swallows, that fly beneath the vault of heaven. He despised them and looked upon them as little twittering birds that were made only to sing.

The pigeons, he admitted, were large and shone in the sun like mother-of-pearl. They somewhat resembled weatherc.o.c.ks, but were fat and stupid and thought only of stuffing themselves with food. "Besides," said the weatherc.o.c.k, "they are very tiresome things to converse with."

The birds of pa.s.sage often paid a visit to the weatherc.o.c.k and told him tales of foreign lands, of large flocks pa.s.sing through the air, and of encounters with robbers and birds of prey. These were very interesting when heard for the first time, but the weatherc.o.c.k knew the birds always repeated themselves, and that made it tedious to listen."They are tedious, and so is every one else," said he; "there is no one fit to a.s.sociate with. One and all of them are wearisome and stupid. The whole world is worth nothing--it is made up of stupidity."

The weatherc.o.c.k was what is called "lofty," and that quality alone would have made him interesting in the eyes of the Cuc.u.mber, had she known it. But she had eyes only for the yard c.o.c.k, who had actually made his appearance in her yard; for the violence of the storm had pa.s.sed, but the wind had blown down the wooden palings.

"What do you think of that for crowing?" asked the yard c.o.c.k of his hens and chickens. It was rather rough, and wanted elegance, but they did not say so, as they stepped upon the dunghill while the c.o.c.k strutted about as if he had been a knight. "Garden plant," he cried to the Cuc.u.mber.

She heard the words with deep feeling, for they showed that he understood who she was, and she forgot that he was pecking at her and eating her up--a happy death!