The keen blade of a Sword, made of Damascus steel, which had been thrown
aside on a heap of old iron, was sent to market with the other pieces of metal,
and sold for a trifle to a Moujik. Now, a Moujik's ideas move in a narrow circle.
He immediately set to work to turn the blade to account. Our Moujik fitted a
handle to the blade, and began to strip lime-trees in the forest with it, of the bark
he wanted for shoes, while at home he unceremoniously splintered fir chips with
it. Sometimes, also, he would lop off twigs with it, or small branches for
mending his wattled fences, or would shape stakes with it for his garden paling.
And the result was that, before the year was out, our blade was notched and
rusted from one end to the other, and the children used to ride astride of it. So
one day a Hedgehog, which was lying under a bench in the cottage, close by the
spot where the blade had been flung, said to it:
"Tell me, what do you think of this life of yours? If there is any truth in all the
fine things that are said about Damascus steel, you surely must be ashamed of
having to splinter fir chips, and square stakes, and of being turned, at last, into a
plaything for children."
But the Sword-blade replied:
"In the hands of a warrior, I should have been a terror to the foe; but here my
special faculties are of no avail. So in this house I am turned to base uses only.
But am I free to choose my employment? No, not I, but he, ought to be ashamed
who could not see for what I was fit to be employed."
The Cuckoo and the Turtle-dove
A Cuckoo sat on a bough, bitterly complaining.
"Why art thou so sad, dear friend?" sympathizingly cooed the Turtle-dove to her,
from a neighbouring twig. "Is it because spring has passed away from us, and
love with it; that the sun has sunk lower, and that we are nearer to the winter?"
"How can I help grieving, unhappy one that I am?" replied the Cuckoo: "thou
shalt thyself be the judge. This spring my love was a happy one, and, after a
while, I became a mother. But my offspring utterly refused even to recognize
me. Was it such a return that I expected from them? And how can I help being
envious when I see how ducklings crowd around their mother—how chickens