"We have set up a pretty little umbrella on the top of our seeds. It is the sweetest little plaything imaginable. If you will only blow a little on me, the seeds will fly into the air and fall down wherever you please. Will you do so?" "Certainly," said the Breeze. And ush! it went over the Thistle and the Dandelion and carried all the seeds with it into the cornfield. 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." 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 do you come from?" And the Thistle looked at the Burdock and asked, "Where in the world have _you_ come from?" They were all equally astonished, and it was an hour before they had explained. But the Rye was the angriest, and when she had heard all about Trusty and the Hare and the Breeze she grew quite wild.