ly, for he had got something to meditate on. Close
beside him, you must know, lay a singular little thing which he simply
couldn't make out at all.

"What sort of a fellow are you?" asked the root, but received no answer.

"Can't you answer when you're spoken to by respectable people?" said the
root again. "Seeing that we're neighbours, it seems reasonable that we
should make each other's acquaintance."

But the queer thing persisted in saying nothing and the root meditated
all through the winter and wondered what it could be.

Later, in the spring, the thing swelled out and grew ever so fat and,
one day, a little sprout shot out of it.

"Good-morning!" said the root. "A merry spring-time to you! Perhaps you
will now think fit to answer what I have been asking you these last six
months: whom have I the honour of addressing?"

"I am the flowers' dream," replied the thing. "I am a seed and you are a
blockhead."

The root pondered about this for some little time. He did not mind being
called a blockhead, for, when you're a root, you have to submit to being
abused. But he couldn't quite understand that remark about the flowers'
dream and so he begged for a further explanation.

"I can feel that the ground is still too hard for me to break through,"
said the seed, "so I don't mind having a chat with you. You see, I was
lying inside one of the flowers, when you others were squabbling with
them in the summer, and I heard all that you said. I had a fine laugh at
you, believe me; but I dared not join in the conversation: I was too
green for that."

"Well, but, now that you are big, I suppose you're allowed to talk?"
asked the root.

"Big enough not to care a fig for you!" replied the seed and, at the
same time, shot a dear little root into the ground. "I have a root of my
own now and need not submit to any of your impudence."

The old root opened his eyes very wide indeed, but said nothing.

"However, I prefer to treat you with civility," said the seed. "After
all, in a manner of speaking, you're my father."

"Am I?" asked the root and looked as important as ever he could.

"Of course you are," replied the seed. "You are all of you my parents.
You procured food for me in the earth and the leaves cooked it in the
sun. The branches lifted me into the air and light, but the flower
rocked me in the bottom of her calyx and dreamed and, in her dream,
whispered in the ears of the bumblebees, so that they might tell it t