Translated from the German.
THE LITTLE BIRDS ON CHRISTMAS DAY.
On holy Christmas morning there was a grand assemblage of little birds behind the elder-tree yonder which stands between the court-yard and the garden, flanked on one side by the barn and on the other by heaps of grain that had found no shelter in the granary—so rich had been the blessings of the Lord!
The sparrow with his house and generation was very fully represented in the meeting; and all who belonged to his family puffed out their feathers and sat looking as if something vexatious had befallen them.
The lark, sitting between the furrows in the field hard by, raised himself up a little way now and again, warbling a short kyrie or gloria as his thoughts came and went.
Finches and goldhammers were there in great spirits, as usual; and the blackbird perched now inside the court-wall, now on the outside; then he flew down to the brook, ducked down and up again, flew up into the tree with the other birds, and praised the cold-water-cure, which makes one feel right fresh and joyful as nothing else can.
Ravens and crows and the rest of the grab-alls, who are for ever finding what no one has lost, crowded close together on the grain-stacks in deep and loud discussion.
But the sparrow began to bewail his fate thus: "I have been sadly disturbed in my night's rest, for before daybreak all the bells in the steeples began to ring as if for fire. I flew out into the darkness; and all around the houses looked bright, as if they were on fire within. Many tiny candles were lighted, and the trees on which they burned were covered with all kinds of fruit, such as I never have seen together on one tree. But we enjoy nothing of all this. Our trees are bare enough, and have not even leaves to screen us from this winter's cold. We shall starve to death or freeze, when once food becomes scarcer and the cold more piercing."