Merchant's gains. She took it into her 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."