Presently he came to the Weeshy Glen, sat down a little way off from the hawthorn tree where its thorns could not possibly touch him, tuned up his mandolin, and began to sing this little song:
“The oak tree raises his arms on high,
The pine tree reaches up to the sky,
The slender birch is a lady fair,
The poplar has a most elegant air.
But tell, oh tell me now, who is this
Small and stunted and all amiss?
Who can he be? oh, who can he be?
This squat little, odd little, strange little tree?”
It wasn’t very kind of the Rainbow Cat, but the hawthorn tree was a very disagreeable fellow, you must remember, and nobody could ever do anything to punish him because every one was so afraid of his sharp thorns.