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THE WATER-DROP
BY FRIEDRICH WILHELM CAROVE'
(ADAPTED FROM THE TRANSLATION BY SARAH AUSTIN)
There was once a child who lived in a little hut,
and in the hut there was nothing but a little bed
and a looking-glass; but as soon as the first
sunbeam glided softly through the casement and
kissed his sweet eyelids, and the finch and the
linnet waked him merrily with their morning
songs, he arose and went out into the green
meadow.
And he begged flour of the primrose, and sugar
of the violet, and butter of the buttercup. He
shook dewdrops from the cowslip into the cup of
the harebell, spread out a large lime-leaf, set his
breakfast upon it, and feasted daintily. And he
invited a humming-bee and a gay butterfly to
partake of his feast, but his favorite guest was
a blue dragon-fly.
The bee murmured a good deal about his riches,
and the butterfly told his adventures. Such talk
delighted the child, and his breakfast was the
sweeter to him, and the sunshine on leaf and
flower seemed more bright and cheering.
But when the bee had flown off to beg from
flower to flower, and the butterfly had fluttered
away to his play-fellows, the dragon-fly still
remained, poised on a blade of grass. Her slender
and burnished body, more brightly and deeply
blue than the deep blue sky, glistened in the
sunbeam. Her net-like wings laughed at the flowers
because they could not fly, but must stand still
and abide the wind and rain.
The dragon-fly sipped a little of the child's clear
dewdrops and blue violet honey, and then whispered
her winged words. Such stories as the
dragon-fly did tell! And as the child sat
motionless with his blue eyes shut, and his head rested
on his hands, she thought he had fallen asleep;
so she poised her double wings and flew into the
rustling wood.
But the child had only sunk into a dream of
delight and was wishing he were a sunbeam or a
moonbeam; and he would have been glad to hear
more and more, and forever.
But at last as all was still, he opened his eyes
and looked around for his dear guest, but she was
flown far away. He could not bear to sit there
any longer alone, and he rose and went to the
gurgling brook. It gushed and rolled so merrily,
and tumbled so wildly along as it hurried to
throw itself head-over-heels into the river, just
as if the great massy rock out of which it sprang
were close behind it, and could only be escaped
by a breakneck leap.
Then the child began to talk to the little waves
and asked them whence they came. They would
not stay to give him an answer, but danced away
one over another; till at last, that the sweet child
might not be grieved, a water-drop stopped behind
a piece of rock.
``A long time ago,'' said the water-drop, ``I
lived with my countless sisters in the great Ocean,
in peace and unity. We had all sorts of pastimes.
Sometimes we mounted up high into the air, and
peeped at the stars. Then we sank plump down
deep below, and looked how the coral builders
work till they are tired, that they may reach the
light of day at last.
``But I was conceited, and thought myself
much better than my sisters. And so, one day,
when the sun rose out of the sea, I clung fast to
one of his hot beams and thought how I should
reach the stars and become one of them.
``But I had not ascended far when the sunbeam
shook me off, and, in spite of all I could say or do,
let me fall into a dark cloud. And soon a flash of
fire darted through the cloud, and now I thought
I must surely die; but the cloud laid itself down
softly upon the top of a mountain, and so I
escaped.
``Now I thought I should remain hidden, when,
all on a sudden, I slipped over a round pebble,
fell from one stone to another, down into the
depths of the mountain. At last it was pitch dark
and I could neither see nor hear anything.
``Then I found, indeed, that `pride goeth
before a fall,' for, though I had already laid aside
all my unhappy pride in the cloud, my punishment
was to remain for some time in the heart of
the mountain. After undergoing many purifications
from the hidden virtues of metals and
minerals, I was at length permitted to come up once
more into the free and cheerful air, and to gush
from this rock and journey with this happy
stream. Now will I run back to my sisters in the
Ocean, and there wait patiently till I am called
to something better.''
So said the water-drop to the child, but scarcely
had she finished her story, when the root of a
For-Get-Me-Not caught the drop and sucked her
in, that she might become a floweret, and twinkle
brightly as a blue star on the green firmament of
earth.
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