Fairies -- Juvenile fiction; Natural history -- Juvenile fiction
"Kindly allow me to hold on to you," he said to the nearest weeds. He
held on to them with his hooks and rose yet higher in the crowd.
"Take your hooks out. You are hurting us!" cried the weeds. They
tried to grow above him and to crush him down, but he had the start
now, and he made the most of it. Higher and higher he grew, holding on
to the taller plants, and sending out new hooked branches on every side
to help in his support. At last his head rose above all the
surrounding plants. He could breathe freely in the sweet air. "Ah!
this is delightful!" he cried. He grew fast, spreading himself out
widely on both sides.
Next he turned his attention to the hedge. "I must climb to the top,"
he said, "so as to escape its shadow and get all the sunshine there
is." Hook by hook and branch by branch he climbed up the side of the
hedge until he could look over the top.
"Why don't you grow thick stems of your own instead of hanging on to
other people?" grumbled the hedge. But the Scrambler took no notice;
he was busy making his flowers. "Now that I have been so successful, I
must do my duty and bear seeds," he said to himself.
When the buds opened he was starred with pretty white blossoms tinged
here and there with pink. He put plenty of honey in the honey-cups, so
the insects came in crowds and carried his pollen from flower to
flower. "That is well," he said. "Now my seeds will set."
Soon the petals fell and the seeds set. "I must make a sweet berry, so
that the birds will carry my seeds away to grow," he said. So he set
his seeds in berries that turned black and sweet and juicy. The birds
came and picked them, and carried the seeds away to grow.
"I wonder you like to see your children going so far away from you,"
said the Hedge.
"It is the best thing for them," replied the Scrambler. "There is no
room for them here. They would be choked if they fell beneath my
branches."
There was indeed no room for them there. The Scrambler had not only
covered the top of the hedge, but had grown over the other side too,
down to the ground.
WOOLLYMOOLLY
Woollymoolly blamed the sweet-peas and sunflowers and gold and purple
pansies; but I blame Woollymoolly for not doing as he was told. He
never would do what he was told, and that caused all the trouble. When
he was only a few weeks old he jumped down from the railway truck, away
from his mother; and though she called him and called him and called
him, he just ran and ran and ran till he was lost. Then a big kind
lady found him and took him home and fed him; and he became a Pet Lamb.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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