“Oh, Tree, you are the strongest thing, are you not?” cried Ibbity, sitting up and rubbing his head. “You are able to throw Ibbity to the ground.”
“No, I am not as strong as the wind,” sighed the tree, “it was the wind that broke my branch.”
Then Ibbity ran far away to the place where the wind was blowing the sand in the desert, and he said:
“Oh, Wind, the tree threw Ibbity, but you broke the tree. Are you not the strongest one?”
“No, I am not the strongest one,” said the wind, “the hill is able to stop my blowing.”
So Ibbity ran on and on, until he came to a high hill, and to the hill he said:
“Oh, Hill, the tree threw Ibbity, and the wind broke the tree, but you are able to stop the wind. Are you not the strongest one?”
“Not I,” said the hill. “At my feet lives a small mouse. She is cutting a tunnel straight through me.”
So Ibbity went down the hill, and looked around in the bushes until he found a small brown mouse. To the mouse he said:
“O Mouse, the tree threw Ibbity, the wind broke the tree, and the hill can stop the wind, but you have dug a tunnel through the hill. Are you not the strongest one?”