thday," said
Scrub. "Did ever man fling away such an opportunity of getting rich?
Much good your merry leaves will do in the midst of rags and poverty!"

But Spare laughed at him, and answered with quaint old proverbs
concerning the cares that come with gold, till Scrub, at length getting
angry, vowed his brother was not fit to live with a respectable man; and
taking his lasts, his awls, and his golden leaf, he left the wattle hut,
and went to tell the villagers.

They were astonished at the folly of Spare, and charmed with Scrub's
good sense, particularly when he showed them the golden leaf, and told
that the cuckoo would bring him one every spring.

The new cobbler immediately took him into partnership; the greatest
people sent him their shoes to mend. Fairfeather, a beautiful village
maiden, smiled graciously upon him; and in the course of that summer
they were married, with a grand wedding feast, at which the whole
village danced except Spare, who was not invited, because the bride
could not bear his low-mindedness, and his brother thought him a
disgrace to the family.

As for Scrub he established himself with Fairfeather in a cottage close
by that of the new cobbler, and quite as fine. There he mended shoes to
everybody's satisfaction, had a scarlet coat and a fat goose for
dinner on holidays. Fairfeather, too, had a crimson gown, and fine blue
ribbons; but neither she nor Scrub was content, for to buy this grandeur
the golden leaf had to be broken and parted With piece by piece, so the
last morsel was gone before the cuckoo came with another.

Spare lived on in the old hut, and worked in the cabbage-garden. (Scrub
had got the barley-field because he was the elder.) Every day his coat
grew more ragged, and the hut more weather-beaten; but people remarked
that he never looked sad or sour. And the wonder was that, from the time
any one began to keep his company, he or she grew kinder, happier, and
content.

Every first of April the cuckoo came tapping at their doors with the
golden leaf for Scrub, and the green for Spare. Fairfeather would have
entertained it nobly with wheaten bread and honey, for she had some
notion of persuading it to bring two golden leaves instead of one; but
the cuckoo flew away to eat barley bread with Spare, saying it was not
fit company for fine people, and liked the old hut where it slept so
snugly from Christmas till spring.

Scrub spent the golden leaves, and remained always disco