The Burdock still stood and pondered. Its head was rather thick, and that was why it waited so long. But in the evening a Hare leapt over the hedge. "Hide me! Save me!" he cried. "The farmer's dog Trusty is after me."
"You can creep behind the hedge," said the Burdock, "then I will hide you."
"You don't look to me much good for that job," said the Hare, "but in time of need one must help oneself as one can." And so he got in safety behind the hedge.
"Now you may repay me by taking some of my seeds with you over into the cornfield," said the Burdock; and it broke off some of its many heads and fixed them on the Hare.
A little later Trusty came trotting up to the hedge. "Here's the dog," whispered the Burdock, and with one spring the Hare leapt over the hedge and into the Rye.
"Haven't you seen the Hare, Burdock?" asked Trusty. "I see I have got too old to go hunting. I am quite blind in one eye, and I have completely lost my scent."
"Yes, I have seen him," answered the Burdock; "and if you will do me a service, I will show you where he is."
Trusty agreed, and the Burdock fastened some heads on his back, and said to him,—"If you will only rub yourself against the stile there in the cornfield, my seeds will fall off. But you must not look for the Hare there, for a little while ago I saw him run into the wood."
Trusty dropped the burs on the field and trotted to the wood.
"Well, I've got my seeds put out in the world all right," said the Burdock, and laughed as if much pleased with itself; "but it is impossible to say what will become of the Thistle and the Dandelion, and the Harebell and the Poppy."