oniously splintered fir chips with it.
Sometimes, also, he would lop off twigs with it, or small branches for
mending his wattled fences, or would shape stakes with it for his
garden paling. And the result was that, before the year was out, our
blade was notched and rusted from one end to the other, and the
children used to ride astride of it. So one day a Hedgehog, which was
lying under a bench in the cottage, close by the spot where the blade
had been flung, said to it:

"Tell me, what do you think of this life of yours? If there is any
truth in all the fine things that are said about Damascus steel, you
surely must be ashamed of having to splinter fir chips, and square
stakes, and of being turned, at last, into a plaything for children."

But the Sword-blade replied:

"In the hands of a warrior, I should have been a terror to the foe; but
here my special faculties are of no avail. So in this house I am
turned to base uses only. But am I free to choose my employment? No,
not I, but he, ought to be ashamed who could not see for what I was fit
to be employed."

The Cuckoo and the Turtle-dove

A Cuckoo sat on a bough, bitterly complaining.

"Why art thou so sad, dear friend?" sympathizingly cooed the
Turtle-dove to her, from a neighbouring twig. "Is it because spring
has passed away from us, and love with it; that the sun has sunk lower,
and that we are nearer to the winter?"

"How can I help grieving, unhappy one that I am?" replied the Cuckoo:
"thou shalt thyself be the judge. This spring my love was a happy one,
and, after a while, I became a mother. But my offspring utterly
refused even to recognize me. Was it such a return that I expected
from them? And how can I help being envious when I see how ducklings
crowd around their mother--how chickens hasten to the hen when she
calls to them. Just like an orphan I sit here, utterly alone, and know
not what filial affection means."

"Poor thing!" says the Dove, "I pity you from my heart. As for me,
though I know such things often occur, I should die outright it my
dovelets did not love me. But tell me, have you already brought up
your little ones? When did you find time to build a nest? I never saw
you doing anything of the kind: you were always flying and fluttering
about."

"No, indeed!" says the Cuckoo. "Pretty nonsense it would have been if
I had spent such fine days in sitting on a nest! That would, indeed,
have been the highest pitch