"Good Master Cuckoo," said Scrub, "a diamond or pearl would help such poor men as my brother and I to provide something better than barley bread for your next entertainment." "I know nothing of diamonds or pearls," said the cuckoo; "they are in the hearts of rocks and the sands of rivers. My knowledge is only of that which grows on the earth. But there are two trees hard by the well that lies at the world's end. One of them is called the golden tree, for its leaves are all of beaten gold. As for the other, it is always green, like a laurel. Some call it the wise, and some the merry tree. Its leaves never fall, but they that get one of them keep a blithe heart in spite of all misfortunes, and can make themselves as merry in a poor hut as in a handsome palace." "Good Master Cuckoo, bring me a leaf off that tree!" cried Spare. "Now, brother, don't be foolish!" said Scrub. "Think of the leaves of beaten gold! Dear Master Cuckoo, bring me one of them." Before another word could be spoken, the cuckoo had flown. The brothers were poorer than ever that year; nobody would send them a single shoe to mend. The new cobbler said, in scorn, they should come to be his apprentices; and Scrub and Spare would have left the village but for their barley field, their cabbage garden, and a maid called Fairfeather, whom both the cobblers had courted for more than seven years. At the end of the winter Scrub and Spare had grown so poor and ragged that Fairfeather thought them beneath her notice. Old neighbors forgot to invite them to wedding feasts or merry-makings; and they thought the cuckoo had forgotten them, too, when at daybreak, on the first of April, they heard a hard beak knocking at their door, and a voice crying: "Cuckoo! cuckoo! Let me in." Spare ran to open the door, and in came the cuckoo, carrying on one side of his bill a golden leaf, larger than that of any tree in the North Country; and in the other, one like that of the common laurel, only it had a fresher green. "Here!" it said, giving the gold to Scrub and the green to Spare. So much gold had never been in the cobbler's hands before, and he could not help exulting over his brother. "See the wisdom of my choice," he said, holding up the large leaf of gold. "As for yours, as good might be plucked from any hedge. I wonder a sensible bird should carry the like so far." "Good Master Cobbler," cried the cuckoo, finishing the slice, "your conclusions are more hasty than courteous. If your brother be disappointed this time, I go on the same journey every year, and, for your hospitable entertainment, will think it no trouble to bring each of you whichever leaf you desire." "Darling cuckoo," cried Scrub, "bring me a golden one." And Spare, looking up from the green leaf on which he gazed, said: "Be sure to bring me one from the merry tree." And away flew the cuckoo once again.