Wonder-Box Tales | Page 9

eggs!" said the Lark, as soon as she could speak, "I am so miserable about them--they will be trodden on, they will certainly be found."
"What is the matter?" asked the Grasshopper. "Perhaps we can help you."
"Dear Grasshopper," said the Lark, "I have just heard the farmer and his son talking on the other side of the hedge, and the farmer said that to-morrow morning he should begin to cut this meadow."
"That is a great pity," said the Grasshopper. "What a sad thing it was that you laid your eggs on the ground!"
"Larks always do," said the poor little brown bird; "and I did not know how to make a fine nest such as those in the hedges. Oh, my pretty eggs!--my heart aches for them! I shall never hear my little nestlings chirp!"
So the poor Lark moaned and lamented, and neither the Grasshopper nor the Fairy could do anything to help her. At last her mate dropped down from the white cloud where he had been singing, and when he saw her drooping, and the Grasshopper and the Fairy sitting silently before her, he inquired in a great fright what the matter was.
So they told him, and at first he was very much shocked; but presently he lifted first one and then the other of his feet, and examined his long spurs.
"He does not sympathize much with his poor mate," whispered the Fairy; but the Grasshopper took no notice of the speech.
Still the Lark looked at his spurs, and seemed to be very deep in thought.
"If I had only laid my eggs on the other side of the hedge," sighed the poor mother, "among the corn, there would have been plenty of time to rear my birds before harvest time."
"My dear," answered her mate, "don't be unhappy." And so saying, he hopped up to the eggs, and laying one foot upon the prettiest, he clasped it with his long spurs. Strange to say, it exactly fitted them.
"Oh, my clever mate!" cried the poor little mother, reviving; "do you think you can carry them away for me?"
"To be sure I can," replied the Lark, beginning slowly and carefully to hop on with the egg in his right foot; "nothing more easy. I have often thought it was likely that our eggs would be disturbed in this meadow; but it never occurred to me till this moment that I could provide against this misfortune. I have often wondered what my spurs could be for, and now I see." So saying, he hopped gently on till he came to the hedge, and then got through it, still holding the egg, till he found a nice little hollow place in among the corn, and there he laid it and came back for the others.
"Hurrah!" cried the Grasshopper, "Larkspurs forever!"
The Fairy said nothing, but she felt heartily ashamed of herself. She sat looking on till the happy Lark had carried the last of his eggs to a safe place, and had called his mate to come and sit on them. Then, when he sprang up into the sky again, exulting and rejoicing and singing to his mate that now he was quite happy, because he knew what his long spurs were for, she stole gently away, saying to herself, "Well, I could not have believed such a thing. I thought he must be a quarrelsome bird as his spurs were so long; but it appears that I was wrong, after all."

THE PRINCE'S DREAM
If we may credit the fable, there is a tower in the midst of a great Asiatic plain, wherein is confined a prince who was placed there in his earliest infancy, with many slaves and attendants, and all the luxuries that are compatible with imprisonment.
Whether he was brought there from some motive of state, whether to conceal him from enemies, or to deprive him of rights, has not transpired; but it is certain that up to the date of this little history he had never set his foot outside the walls of that high tower, and that of the vast world without he knew only the green plains which surrounded it; the flocks and the birds of that region were all his experience of living creatures, and all the men he saw outside were shepherds.
And yet he was not utterly deprived of change, for sometimes one of his attendants would be ordered away, and his place would be supplied by a new one. The prince would never weary of questioning this fresh companion, and of letting him talk of cities, of ships, of forests, of merchandise, of kings; but though in turns they all tried to satisfy his curiosity, they could not succeed in conveying very distinct notions to his mind; partly because there was nothing in the tower to which they could