The hedgehog crawled so far into a hole under a heap of stones that he remained caught between two of them and could move neither forwards nor backwards. The sparrow took lodgings in a deserted swallow’s-nest; the frogs went to the bottom of the pond for good, settled in the mud, with the tips of their noses up in the water, and prepared for whatever might come. The waves loosened the water-lily’s stalks and washed them clean away; the rushes snapped in the storm and drifted with the stream.
The Prince of Autumn stood and gazed over the land to see if it was bare and waste, so that Winter’s storms might come buffeting at will and the snow lie where it pleased.
And so empty was it that the sun rose later, morning after morning, and went earlier to bed, evening after evening, because he did not think that he had anything to shine upon.
“Now I’m coming!” roared Winter from the mountains. “My clouds are bursting with snow; and my storms are breaking loose.”
“I have one day left,” said Autumn.
He walked across the meadow, where already the grass was yellow and the flowers gone, except the little white daisy, which can never get done in time. Then he went into the naked wood. He peeped at the hedgehog, smiled at the little brown mice, who carried the shells neatly and decently outside the parlour each time they had had a nut-feast, patted the strong beech-trunks and asked them if they could stand the storm and nodded to the jolly crows.
Then he stopped before the old, dead oak and looked at the ivy that clambered right up to the top and spread her green leaves as if Winter had no existence at all.
And, while he looked at it with eyes that were gentle and moist like Spring’s, the ivy-flowers blossomed. They sat right at the top and rocked in the wind, yellow-green and insignificant, but just as good flowers as any of those which grew in Summer’s kingdom.
“Now I can restrain my storms no longer!” roared Winter.
The Prince of Autumn bent his head and listened. He could hear the storm come rushing down over the mountains. A snowflake fell upon his motley cloak ... and another ... and yet another....