"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. "Thank heaven, the farmer shot the hare last autumn," she said; "and Trusty, fortunately, is also dead, the old scamp. So I am at peace, as far as _they_ are concerned. But how dare the breeze promise to drop the seeds of the weeds in the farmer's cornfield?" "Don't be in such a passion, you green rye," said the breeze, who had been lying behind the hedge and hearing everything. "I ask no one's permission, but do as I like; and now I'm going to make you bow to me." Then she passed over the young rye, and the thin blades swayed backwards and forwards. "You see," she said, "the farmer attends to his rye, because that is _his_ business. But the rain and the sun and I--we attend to all of you without respect of persons. To our eyes the poor weed is just as pretty as the rich corn."