And Joke heaved big sighs.
“Oh, dear! oh, dear!” said little Cis, “pray don’t quarrel over a grub.”
“Quarrel, indeed!” cried a voice out of the bushes; “they’re always quarrelling!”
It was a plump Maori hen who thus spoke, and she added, “If they’d leave off making rhymes, and attend to the business of every-day life, it would be far better. While they sat looking up at the skies, the grub rolled down, and I caught him and ate him, for it was a pity he should be wasted. In fact,” added the hen, with a satisfied nod, “as a rule, they find the grubs, and I eat them!”
At this, the dwarfs got so puffed out with anger, that the children were afraid they would burst, they rolled their eyes round and round, in search of something to throw at the Maori hen, but she ran away into the bushes beyond their reach.
“I should be glad if you’d give us a drink out of those green cups of yours,” said Hal; “and couldn’t you make some better poetry? if so, we’d like to hear it very much.”
The dwarfs then handed the children each a mountain-lily leaf full of cool dew, saying:—
“To you we hold the fairy cup,
And bid you drink of sparkling dew,