Now as soon as the anemones had heard the first piping of the starling, they cautiously stuck out their heads from the earth. But they were so tightly wrapped up in green kerchiefs that one could not get a glimpse of them. They looked like green shoots which might turn into anything.
"It is too early," they whispered. "It is a shame of the starling to entice us out. One can't rely on anything in the world nowadays."
Then the swallow came.
"Chee! chee!" he twittered, and shot through the air on his long, tapering wings. "Out with you, you stupid flowers! Don't you see that my Lady Spring has come?"
But the anemones had grown cautious. They only drew their green kerchiefs a little apart and peeped out.
"One swallow does not make a summer," they said. "Where is your wife? You have only come here to see if it is possible to stay here, and you want to take us in. But we are not so stupid. We know very well that if we once catch a bad cold we are done for, for this year at any rate."
