r head to weave goods for
sale herself, and determined to open a little shop for them in a window
corner, seeking thereby to undermine the Merchant's success.

She commenced her web, spun the whole night long, and then set out her
wares on view. From her shop she did not stir, but remained sitting
there, puffed up with pride, and thinking, "So soon as the day shall
dawn will all buyers be enticed to me."

Well, the day did dawn. But what then? There came a broom, and the
ingenious creatures and her little shop were swept clean away.

Our Spider went wild with vexation.

"There!" she cried, "what's the good of expecting a just reward? And
yet I ask the whole world--Whose work is the finer, mine or that
Merchant's?"

"Yours, to be sure," answered the Bee. "Who would venture to deny the
fact? Every one knew that long ago. But what is the good of it if
there's neither warmth nor wear in it?"

The Cuckoo and the Cock

"How proudly and sonorously you sing, my dear Cock!"

"But you, dear Cuckoo, my light, how smoothly flows your long drawn-out
note! There is no such singer in all the rest of our forest."

"To you, dear friend, I could listen forever."

"And as for you, my beauty, I protest that when you are silent I
scarcely know how to wait till you begin again. Where do you get such
a voice?--so clear, so soft, so high! But no doubt you were always
like that: not very large in stature, but in song--a nightingale."

"Thanks, friend. As for you, I declare on my conscience you sing
better than the birds in the Garden of Eden. I appeal to public
opinion for a proof of this."

At this moment a Sparrow, who had overheard their conversation, said to
them:

"You may go on praising each other till you are hoarse, my friends; but
your music is utterly worthless."

Why was it, that, not fearing to sin, the Cuckoo praised the Cock?
Simply because the Cock praised the Cuckoo.

The Peasant and the Robber

A Peasant who was beginning to stock his little farm had bought a cow
and a milk-pail at the fair, and was going quietly home by a lonely
path through the forest, when he suddenly fell into the hands of a
Robber. The Robber stripped him as bare as a lime-tree.

"Have mercy!" cried the Peasant. "I am utterly ruined. You have
reduced me to beggary. For a whole year I have worked to buy this dear
little cow. I could hardly bear to wait for this day to arrive."

"Very good," replied the Robber,