Wonder-Box Tales | Page 7

wife."
"Why don't you look for a wife, then?" said the Fairy, laughing at him. "Do you expect one to come and look for you? Fly up, and sing a beautiful song in the sky, and then perhaps some pretty hen will hear you; and perhaps, if you tell her that you will help her to build a capital nest, and that you will sing to her all day long, she will consent to be your wife."
"Oh, I don't like," said the Lark, "I don't like to fly up, I am so ugly. If I were a goldfinch, and had yellow bars on my wings, or a robin, and had red feathers on my breast, I should not mind the defect which now I am afraid to show. But I am only a poor brown Lark, and I know I shall never get a wife."
"I never heard of such an unreasonable bird," said the Fairy. "You cannot expect to have everything."
"Oh, but you don't know," proceeded the Lark, "that if I fly up my feet will be seen; and no other bird has feet like mine. My claws are enough to frighten any one, they are so long; and yet I assure you, Fairy, I am not a cruel bird."
"Let me look at your claws," said the Fairy.
So the Lark lifted up one of his feet, which he had kept hidden in the long grass, lest any one should see it.
"It looks certainly very fierce," said the Fairy. "Your hind claw is at least an inch long, and all your toes have very dangerous-looking points. Are, you sure you never use them to fight with?"
"No, never!" said the Lark, earnestly; "I never fought a battle in my life; but yet these claws grow longer and longer, and I am so ashamed of their being seen that I very often lie in the grass instead of going up to sing, as I could wish."
"I think, if I were you, I would pull them off," said the Fairy.
"That is easier said than done," answered the poor Lark. "I have often got them entangled in the grass, and I scrape them against the hard clods; but it is of no use, you cannot think how fast they stick."
"Well, I am sorry for you," observed the Fairy; "but at the same time I cannot but see that, in spite of what you say, you must be a quarrelsome bird, or you would not have such long spurs."
"That is just what I am always afraid people will say," sighed the Lark.
"For," proceeded the Fairy, "nothing is given us to be of no use. You would not have wings unless you were to fly, nor a voice unless you were to sing; and so you would not have those dreadful spurs unless you were going to fight. If your spurs are not to fight with," continued the unkind Fairy, "I should like to know what they are for?"
"I am sure I don't know," said the Lark, lifting up his foot and looking at it. "Then you are not inclined to help me at all, Fairy? I thought you might be willing to mention among my friends that I am not a quarrelsome bird, and that I should always take care not to hurt my wife and nestlings with my spurs."
"Appearances are very much against you," answered the Fairy; "and it is quite plain to me that those spurs are meant to scratch with. No, I cannot help you. Good morning."
So the Fairy withdrew to her oak bough, and the poor Lark sat moping in the grass while the Fairy watched him. "After all," she thought, "I am sorry he is such a quarrelsome fellow, for that he is such is fully proved by those long spurs."
While she was so thinking, the Grasshopper came chirping up to the Lark, and tried to comfort him.
"I have heard all that the Fairy said to you," he observed, "and I really do not see that it need make you unhappy. I have known you some time, and have never seen you fight or look out of temper; therefore I will spread a report that you are a very good-tempered bird, and that you are looking out for a wife."
The Lark upon this thanked the Grasshopper warmly.
"At the same time," remarked the Grasshopper, "I should be glad if you could tell me what is the use of those claws, because the question might be asked me, and I should not know what to answer."
"Grasshopper," replied the Lark, "I cannot imagine what they are for--that is the real truth."
"Well," said the kind Grasshopper, "perhaps time will show."
So he went away, and the Lark, delighted with his promise to speak well of him, flew up into the air, and the higher he went the