"The walnuts sighed and appealed to an old crow flying by.

"'Do you think we have been planted in this beautiful garden by
mistake?' they said. 'We have been waiting a long time to give pleasure
and to do good to those around us. The bees give us a wide berth--they
say they can get no honey from us; we have no sweet scent to please the
passer-by, no lovely blossoms to delight their eyes. The apples have had
blossoms and fruit, and all the other trees the same, yet here we hang
and grow, and the days go by and we're only laughed at for our ugliness
and want of sweetness.'

"'Wait a little longer,' said the old crow; 'wait, and take pains to
grow!'

"And the walnuts waited, and the sun kissed their hard skins, and the
rain refreshed them when dry and thirsty; and still the sparrows mocked
them, and the apple and pear-tree talked to each other over their heads,
for they too looked upon them as a failure. One day the biggest walnut
broke from his stem and dropped in the long grass. No one heeded his
fall except his brothers; the gardener came by and gathered the apples
and pears, but did not look at the walnut-tree; and when he kicked the
fallen walnut with his feet he took no more notice of it than if it had
been a pebble.

"'Is that our fate?' sighed the walnuts. 'Now we know we are no good.
What is the use of trying to grow? What is the good of living at all
when we're so ugly and useless, and the end of us is to lie and rot in
the grass and be kicked by every one who passes?'

"And they wept bitter tears of disappointment and mortification; and one