Page:Stories and story-telling (1915).djvu/209

 "O to grow in a tree-top and see farther than my nose,"

and the donkey singing,

"O to bray in rhyme and bring down the house."

And then they all sang together,

"O for the time when pigs had wings And pups grew in the tree-tops, In that good time donkeys brayed in rhyme, And fiddles danced the barn hops."

The fiddle never even noticed them; he still stared at the old witch owl, though he did not dare to say anything.

"You kicked off the pack, did you?" asked the old witch owl, turning the full blaze of her eyes on the donkey.

"Yes," he gasped, running behind the pup and the pig, and the pig tried to catch the pup by the tail, and the pup tried to catch the pig by the tail.

"Do you think," she cried in a frightful voice, and her feathers stood out straight around her, "that runaways and idlers will ever fly high or see farther than their noses or bring music into the world? They bring nothing but sorrow, sorrow to those that love them." And suddenly the old witch owl looked out into the night and called,