So they all commenced praying: “Honk, honk, honk! Honk, honk, honk!”
When they have finished praying, this tale shall be continued; but meanwhile you can be very sure that they are praying still.
THE DARNING NEEDLE
THERE was once a darning needle which thought itself so fine that it imagined it was a sewing needle. “Be careful to hold me tightly,” it said to the fingers as they took it up. “Do not drop me, for if I fall I doubt if I should be found again, I am so fine.”
“That’s what you say,” remarked the fingers and began sewing.
“Look, I have a train,” the darning needle said, and dragged a long thread after it.
The fingers belonged to a cook, and they applied the needle to a slipper, the upper leather of which had torn and needed mending. “This is degrading work,” said the darning needle. “I shall never get through such coarse leather. I shall break, I shall break!”
And really it did break. “Did I not tell you so?” the needle sighed. “I am too fine.”
“Now it is good for nothing,” said the fingers; but still they held it while the cook with the fingers of her other hand dropped some melted sealing-wax on the broken end. When the wax cooled, she fastened her neckerchief with the needle.