"I am not a flea. I am the mistletoe."
"Well, I'm no wiser," said the apple-tree.
"I'm a plant like yourself," said the voice. "I shall turn into a bush ... with roots and branches and flowers and leaves and all the rest of it."
"Then why don't you grow in the ground like us?" asked the crab-apple-tree.
"That happens not to be my nature," said the mistletoe.
"Then you have a nasty nature," said the apple-tree and shook herself furiously, so that her white blossoms trembled. "For I understand this much, that I shall have to feed you, you sluggard!"
"Yes, please, if you will be so good," said the mistletoe. "I have my roots fixed in you already; and I am growing day by day. Later on, I shall put forth little green blossoms. They're not much to look at; but then the berries will come, beautiful, juicy white berries: the blackbird is quite mad on them."
"The blackbird is a very fine bird," said the apple-tree; "but, if he wants to dine off me, he can eat my own apples."
"You mustn't think that I have berries for the blackbird's sake," said the mistletoe. "Inside the berry there is a stone; and in the stone my seed lies. And the stone is so sticky that it hangs tight on to the blackbird's beak, until he manages to rub it off on some good old apple-tree or other, who will be a foster-mother to my children, as you have been to me."