And the Top never spoke again of his old love--the feeling must have
passed away. And it is not strange, when the object of it has lain five
years in a gutter, and been drenched through and through, and when one
meets her again in a dustbin. [Illustration]




THE LEAPING MATCH


THE Flea, the Grasshopper, and the Frog once wanted to see which of them
could jump the highest. They made a festival, and invited the whole
world and every one else besides who liked to come and see the grand
sight. Three famous jumpers they were, as all should say, when they met
together in the room. "I will give my daughter to him who shall jump highest," said the King;
"it would be too bad for you to have the jumping, and for us to offer no
prize." The Flea was the first to come forward. He had most exquisite manners,
and bowed to the company on every side; for he was of noble blood, and,
besides, was accustomed to the society of man, and that, of course, had
been an advantage to him. Next came the Grasshopper. He was not quite so elegantly formed as the
Flea, but he knew perfectly well how to conduct himself, and he wore the
green uniform which belonged to him by right of birth. He said,
moreover, that he came of a very ancient Egyptian family, and that in
the house where he then lived he was much thought of. The fact was that he had been just brought out of the fields and put in
a card-house three stories high, and built on purpose for him, with the
colored sides inwards, and doors and windows cut out of the Queen of
Hearts. "And I sing so well," said he, "that sixteen parlor-bred
crickets, who have chirped from infancy and yet got no one to build them
card-houses to live in, have fretted themselves thinner even than
before, from sheer vexation on hearing me." It was thus that the Flea and the Grasshopper made the most of
themselves, each thinking himself quite an equal match for the princess. [Illustration: He made a sideways jump into the lap of the princess.] The Leapfrog said not a word; but people said that perhaps he thought
the more; and the housedog who snuffed at him with his nose allowed that
he was of good family. The old councilor, who had had three orders
given him in vain for keeping quiet, asserted that the Leapfrog was a
prophet, for that one could see on his back whether the coming winter
was to be severe or mild, which is more than one can see on the back of
the man who writes the almanac. "I say nothing for the present," exclaimed the King; "yet I have my own
opinion, for I observe everything." And now the match began. The Flea jumped so high that no one could see
what had become of him; and so they insisted that he had not jumped at
all--which was disgraceful after all the fuss he had made. The Grasshopper jumped only half as high; but he leaped into the King's
face, who was disgusted by his rudeness. The Leapfrog stood for a long time, as if lost in thought; people began
to think he would not jump at all. "I'm afraid he is ill!" said the dog and he went to snuff at him again;
when lo! he suddenly made a sideways jump into the lap of the princess,
who sat close by on a little golden stool. "There is nothing higher than my daughter," said the King; "therefore to
bound into her lap is the highest jump that can be made. Only one of
good understanding would ever have thought of that. Thus the Frog has
shown that he has sense. He has brains in his head, that he has." And so he won the princess. "I jumped the highest, for all that," said the Flea; "but it's all the
same to me. The princess may have the stiff-legged, slimy creature, if
she likes. In this world merit seldom meets its reward. Dullness and
heaviness win the day. I am too light and airy for a stupid world." And so the Flea went into foreign service. The Grasshopper sat without on a green bank and reflected on the world
and its ways; and he too said, "Yes, dullness and heaviness win the day;
a fine exterior is what people care for nowadays." And then he began to
sing in his own peculiar way--and it is from his song that we have taken
this little piece of history, which may very possibly be all untrue,
although it does stand printed here in black and white. [Illustration]




THE HAPPY FAMILY


THE largest green leaf in this country is certainly the burdock. Put one
in front of your waist, and it is just like an apron; or lay it upon
your head, and it is almost as good as an umbrella, it is so broad. Burdock never grows singly; where you find one plant of the kind you may
be sure that others grow in its immediate neighborhood. How magnificent
they look! And all this magnificence is food for snails--the great white snails,
which grand people in olden times used to have dished up as fricassees,
and of which, when they had eaten, they would say, "H'm, how nice!" for
they really fancied them delicious. These snails lived on burdock
leaves, and that was why burdock was planted. Now there was an old estate where snails were no longer considered a
delicacy. The snails had therefore died out, but the burdock still
flourished. In all the alleys and in all the beds it had grown and
grown, so that it could no longer be checked; the place had become a
perfect forest of burdock. Here and there stood an apple or plum tree to serve as a kind of token
that there had been once a garden, but everything, from one end of the
garden to the other, was burdock, and beneath the shade of the burdock
lived the last two of the ancient snails. They did not know themselves how old they were, but they well remembered
the time when there were a great many of them, that they had descended
from a family that came from foreign lands, and that this forest in
which they lived had been planted for them and theirs. They had never
been beyond the limits of the garden, but they knew that there was
something outside their forest, called the castle, and that there one
was boiled, and became black, and was then laid upon a silver
dish--though what happened afterward they had never heard, nor could
they exactly fancy how it felt to be cooked and laid on a silver dish. It was, no doubt, a fine thing, and exceedingly genteel. Neither the cockchafer, nor the toad, nor the earthworm, all of whom
they questioned on the matter, could give them the least information,
for none of them had ever been cooked and served upon silver dishes. The old white snails were the grandest race in the world; of this they
were well aware. The forest had grown for their sake, and the castle or
manor house too had been built expressly that in it they might be cooked
and served. Leading now a very quiet and happy life and having no children, they had
adopted a little common snail, and had brought it up as their own child. But the little thing would not grow, for he was only a common snail,
though his foster mother pretended to see a great improvement in him.