“Haven’t you seen the hare, burdock?” asked Trusty. “I see I have grown 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 burrs on the field and trotted to the wood.
“Well, I’ve sent my seeds out in the world all right,” said the burdock, laughing 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.”
Spring had come round once more, and the rye stood high already.
“We are pretty well off on the whole,” said the rye plants. “Here we stand in a great company, and not one of us but belongs to our own noble family. And we don’t get in each other’s way in the very least. It is a grand thing to be in the service of man.”
But one fine day a crowd of little poppies, and thistles and dandelions, and burdocks and harebells poked up their heads above ground, all amongst the flourishing rye.
“What does this mean?” asked the rye. “Where in the world are you sprung from?”
And the poppy looked at the harebell and asked: “Where did you come from?”