d
decorum.--(Note of the Translator.)

------

"If you _will_ ask questions, do let them be a little rational at
least," said the mother. "Don't you see that they are feathers, living
stuff for clothing such as I wear, and such as you will wear also? But
ours is finer. I should, however, be glad if we had it up here in our
nest, for it keeps one warm. I am curious to know at what the ducks
were so frightened; at us, surely not; 'tis true I said 'chirp,' to
you rather loud. In reality, the thick-headed roses ought to know, but
they know nothing; they only gaze on themselves and smell: for my
part, I am heartily tired of these neighbors."

"Listen to the charming little birds above," said the roses, "they
begin to want to sing too, but they cannot as yet. However, they will
do so by and by: what pleasure that must afford! It is so pleasant to
have such merry neighbors!"

Suddenly two horses came galloping along to be watered. A peasant boy
rode on one, and he had taken off all his clothes except his large
broad black hat. The youth whistled like a bird, and rode into the
pond where it was deepest; and as he passed by the rosebush he
gathered a rose and stuck it in his hat; and now he fancied himself
very fine, and rode on. The other roses looked after their sister, and
asked each other, "Whither is she going?" but that no one knew.

"I should like to go out into the world," thought one; "yet here at
home amid our foliage it is also beautiful. By day the sun shines so
warm, and in the night the sky shines still more beautifully: we can
see that through all the little holes that are in it." By this they
meant the stars, but they did not know any better.

"We enliven the place," said the mamma sparrow; "and the swallow's
nest brings luck, so people say, and therefore people are pleased to
have us. But our neighbors! Such a rose-bush against the wall produces
damp; it will doubtless be cleared away, and then, perhaps, some corn
at least may grow there. The roses are good for nothing except to look
at and to smell, and, at most to put into one's hat. Every year--that
I know from my mother--they fall away; the peasants wife collects them
together and strews salt among them; they then receive a French name
which I neither can nor care to pronounce, and are put upon the fire,
when they are to give a pleasant odor. Look ye, such is their life;
they are only here to please the eye and nose! And so now you know the
whole mat