“How many are there?” asked the Elf.
“About twenty, I should think,” answered the Wheat, “but I can’t count them without cricking my neck.”
“Well, well!” said the little Elf. “It’s a large family to look after. It reminds me of a little rhyme I once heard, about an old woman who lived in a shoe.”
“The more the merrier,” said the Wheat. “Hush, children! Don’t all talk at once!” But the little grains would not stop talking all at once; and although you could not have heard them—their voices were too tinkly and tiny—it was perfectly deafening to any one who could.
The Elf-man went back into his house and shut the door. Presently he had to put some cotton-willow-wool in his ears. The Wheat tried to sing its children to sleep with lullabies; but it did not know any.
“I shall never have a merry family like that, I’m afraid,” said the Barley-corn to the Dormouse. The Barley-corn had hardly grown two inches since the spring. In fact, he was so little, you would hardly have known he was there.
“Never mind,” said the Dormouse. “You have me to talk to you, haven’t you?”
By and by the Wheat got very tired. Just think, if your mother had more than twenty children, who never stopped talking all day and all night! Anyhow, the Wheat could endure it no longer. So it called to the little Elf-man, and said, “Kindly fetch me the Dormouse. I can see him now, on the bank at the end of the field. He’s beginning to get sleepy, too, so please make haste.”
“What do you want me for?” said the Dormouse, when he was fetched. He and the Elf stood staring up at the tall Wheat. The little grains were quieter now. They had said nearly all they had to say.