can understand one so tall as I having to stand upright and
do my duty; but you,--why, you are no taller than one of my green pods
that I am filling with floss--"

"And not half so tall as one of my leaves that I must line with
velvet," interrupted the mullein-stalk again.

The dandelions looked grieved for a moment, but answered brightly:
"Why, don't you know? It must be because you live so far away--there
by the fence--that you don't know we are here to pin the grass down
until it grows old enough to know it must not wander off like the
crickets, or to blow away like the floss in your own pods. Young grass
is very foolish,--I think I heard the farmer call it green the other
day, but we don't like the expression ourselves,--and it would be apt
to do flighty things if we did n't pin it down where it belongs. When
we have taught it its lesson, we can go to sleep. We always stay until
the last minute, and then we slip on our white nightcaps,--so fluffy
and light and soft they are,--and lo! some day we are gone, no one
knows where but the wind; and he carries us off in his arms, for we are
too tired to walk; and then we rest until the next year, when we are
bright and early at our task again."

Then the milkweed and the mullein-stalk bowed very gravely and
respectfully to the little dandelions, and said,--

"Yes, we see. Even such wee things as you have your duties, and we are
sorry you are so weary."

So the milkweed whispered to the breeze that the dandelions were too
warm, and begged it to help them; but the breeze murmured very gently,--

"I don't know what is the matter with me, dear milkweed, but I am so
faint, so faint, I think I shall die."

And sure enough, the next day the little breeze had died, and then they
knew how they missed him, even though he had been so weak for the last
few days; for the sun glared down fiercely, and the meadow thought it
was angry, and was so frightened it grew feverish and parched with very
dread.

"We wish our parasols were larger," sighed the toadstools; "but they
are so small that, try as we may, we cannot get them to cast a large
shadow, and now the breeze has died we have no messenger. If only one
knew how to get word to the clouds!"

But the clouds had done such steady duty through the spring that they
thought they were entitled to a holiday, and had gone to the
mountain-tops, where they were resting calmly, feeling very grand among
such an assembly of crowned h