their prickly balls. I have nothing to tempt the humming-bird, and he
never visits me: only the yellow birds hop gayly from branch to branch,
and the robins come sometimes." And the horse-chestnut sighed, for he
missed the humming-bird; and he flapped his great leaves in the very
face of the linden-blossoms, and forgot to say "Excuse me." But the
linden is now, and for many days, full of sweetness, and will not answer
ungraciously even so careless a touch.

Yes, the linden is full of sweetness, and sends out the fragrance from
his blossoms in through the chamber windows, and down upon the people
who pass in the street below. And he tells all the time his story of how
his pink-covered leaf-buds opened in the spring mornings, and unfolded
the fresh green leaves, which were so tender and full of green juices
that it was no wonder the mother-moth had thought the branches a good
place whereon to lay her eggs; for as soon as they should be all laid,
she would die, and there would be no one to provide food for her babies
when they should creep out.

"So the nice mother-moth made a toilsome journey up my great trunk,"
sung the linden, "and left her eggs where she knew the freshest green
leaves would be coming out by the time the young ones should leave the
eggs.

"And they came out indeed, somewhat to my sorrow; for instead of being,
like their mother, sober, well-behaved little moths, they were green
canker-worms, and such hungry little things, that I really began to fear
I should have not a whole leaf left upon me; when one day they spun for
themselves fine silken ropes, and swung themselves down from leaf to
leaf, and from branch to branch, and in a day or two were all gone.