“What are you looking at, Michael?” asked the magpie, who was watching him from a bough.
“I’m looking at this tree. It has just struck me what a good tree it would be to cut my new snow-shoes out of.” But at this answer the magpie screeched loudly, and exclaimed: “Oh, not this tree, dear brother, I implore you! I have built my nest on it, and my young ones are not yet old enough to fly.”
“It will not be easy to find another tree that would make such good snow-shoes,” answered the fox, cocking his head on one side, and gazing at the tree thoughtfully; “but I do not like to be ill-natured, so if you will give me one of your young ones I will seek my snow-shoes elsewhere.”
Not knowing what to do the poor magpie had to agree, and flying back, with a heavy heart, he threw one of his young ones out of the nest. The fox seized it in his mouth and ran off in triumph, while the magpie, though deeply grieved for the loss of his little one, found some comfort in the thought that only a bird of extraordinary wisdom would have dreamed of saving the rest by the sacrifice of the one. But what do you think happened? Why, a few days later, Michael the fox might have been seen sitting under the very same tree, and a dreadful pang shot through the heart of the magpie as he peeped at him from a hole in the nest.
“What are you looking at?” he asked in a trembling voice.
“At this tree. I was just thinking what good snowshoes it would make,” answered the fox in an absent voice, as if he was not thinking of what he was saying.
“Oh, my brother, my dear little brother, don’t do that,” cried the magpie, hopping about in his anguish. “You know you promised only a few days ago that you would get your snow-shoes elsewhere.”
“So I did; but though I have searched through the whole forest, there is not a single tree that is as good as this. I am very sorry to put you out, but really it is not my fault. The only thing I can do for you is to offer to give up my snow-shoes altogether if you will throw me down one of your young ones in exchange.”
And the poor magpie, in spite of his wisdom, was obliged to throw another of his little ones out of the nest; and this time he was not able to console himself with the thought that he had been much cleverer than other people.
He sat on the edge of his nest, his head drooping and his feathers all ruffled, looking the picture of misery. Indeed he was so different from the gay, jaunty magpie whom every creature in the forest knew, that a crow who was flying past, stopped to inquire what was the matter. “Where are the two young ones who are not in the nest?” asked he.