"Do not vex yourselves about that," said the stork-mother; "don't listen to them, and then it does not matter."
But the boys continued to sing, and they pointed with their fingers to the stork; there was one boy, however, among them, and his name was Peter, and he said that it was a sin to make fun of the storks, and he would not do it.
The stork-mother consoled her young ones thus: "Don't annoy yourselves about that. Look how funnily your father stands on one leg!"
"We are so frightened!" said the young ones, and buried their heads down in the nest.
The next day, when the children assembled again to play, they saw the storks, and they began their verse:—
"The second have its neck wrung;
The third shall be burned to death!"
"Shall we be hanged and burned?" asked the young storks.
"No, certainly not!" said the mother. "You will learn to fly; I will exercise you; and so we shall take you out into the meadows, and go a visiting to the frogs, that make courtesies to us in the water; they sing—'koax! koax!' and so we eat them up; that is a delight!"
"And how so?" asked the young storks.