(My apologies for the rather lengthy story, but it is well worth the read!)
Out in the country, close by the roadside, there was a country-house. Certainly you yourself have once seen it.
Before it is a little garden with flowers and palings which are painted green. Close by it, by the ditch in the midst of the most beautiful green grass, grew a little daisy.
The sun shone as warmly and as brightly upon it as on the great splendid garden flowers, and so it grew from hour to hour.
One morning it stood in full bloom with its little shining white leaves spreading like rays round the little yellow sun in the centre.
It never thought that no one would notice it down in the grass, and that it was a poor, despised floweret. It was very merry, and turned to the warm sun, looked up at it, and listened to the lark carolling high in the air.
The little daisy was as happy as if it were a great holiday, and yet it was only a Monday. All the children were at school. While they sat on their benches learning, it sat on its little green stalk, and learned also from the warm sun, and from all around, how good God is.
And the daisy was very glad that everything that it silently felt was sung so loudly and charmingly by the lark. And the daisy looked up with a kind of respect to the happy bird who could sing and fly; but it was not at all sorrowful because it could not fly and sing also.
“I can see and hear,” it thought; “the sun shines on me, and the forest kisses me. Oh, how richly have I been gifted.”
Within the palings stood many stiff, aristocratic flowers – the less scent they had the more they flaunted.
The peonies blew themselves out to be greater than the roses, but size will not do it. The tulips had the most splendid colours, and they knew that, and held themselves bolt upright that they might be seen more plainly.
They did not notice the little daisy outside there, but the daisy looked at them the more and thought, “How rich and beautiful they are. Yes; the pretty bird flies across to them and visits them. I am glad that I stand so near them, for, at any rate, I can enjoy the sight of their splendour!”
Just as she thought that – “keevit!” Down came flying the lark, but not down to the peonies and tulips – no, down into the grass to the lowly daisy, which started so with joy that it did not know what to think.
The little bird danced round about it and sang, “Oh, how soft the grass is! And see what a lovely little flower, with gold in its heart and silver on its dress!” For the yellow point in the daisy looked like gold, and the little leaves around it shone silvery white.
How happy was the little daisy – one can conceive how happy! The bird kissed it with his beak, sang to it, and then flew up again into the blue air.
A quarter of an hour passed, at least, before the daisy could recover itself. Half ashamed, but inwardly rejoiced, it looked at the other flowers in the garden, for they had seen the honour and happiness it had gained, and must understand what a joy it was.
But the tulips stood up twice as stiff as before. They looked quite peaky in the face, and quite red, for they were vexed.
The peonies were quite wrong-headed. It was well they could not speak, or the daisy would have received a good scolding. The poor little flower could see very well that they were not in a good humour, and that hurt it.
At this moment there came into the garden a girl with a great sharp, shiny knife. She went straight up to the tulips and cut off one after another of them.
“Oh!” sighed the daisy, “that is dreadful! Now it is all over with them!”
Then the girl went away with the tulips. The daisy was glad to stand out in the grass and be only a poor little flower. It felt very grateful. When the sun went down, it folded its leaves and went to sleep. It dreamed all night long about the sun and the pretty little bird.
The next morning, when the flower again happily stretched out all its white leaves like little arms toward the light and air, it recognized the voice of the bird, but the song he was singing sounded mournfully.
Yes, the poor lark had reason to be sad. He had been caught, and now sat in a cage close by the open window.
He sang of free and happy roaming. He sang of the young green corn in the fields. He sang of the glorious journey he might make on his wings high through the air.
The poor lark was not in good spirits, for there he sat, a prisoner in a cage.
The little daisy wished very much to help him. But what was it to do? Yes, that was difficult to make out.
The daisy quite forgot how everything was so beautiful around, how warm the sun shone, and how splendidly white its own leaves were.
Ah! it could only think of the imprisoned bird, and how it was powerless to do anything for him.
Just then two little boys came out of the garden. One of them carried in his hand the knife which the little girl had used to cut off tulips. The boys went straight up to the little daisy, which could not at all make out what they wanted.
“Here we may cut a capital piece of turf for the lark,” said one of the boys; and he began to cut off a square patch round about the daisy, so that the flower remained standing in its piece of grass.
“Tear off the flower!” said the other boy, and the daisy trembled with fear, for to be torn off would be to lose its life; and now it wanted particularly to live, as it was to be given with the piece of turf to the captive lark.
“No; let it stay,” said the other boy; “it makes such a nice ornament.”
And so it remained, and was put into the lark’s cage. But the poor bird complained aloud of his lost liberty, and beat his wings against the wires of his prison; and the little daisy could not speak – could say no consoling word to him, gladly as it would have done so. And thus the whole morning passed.
“Here is no water,” said the captive lark. “They are all gone out, and have forgotten to give me anything to drink. My throat is dry and burning. It is like fire and ice within me, and the air is so close. Oh, I must die! I must leave the warm sunshine, the fresh green, and all the splendour that God has created!”
And then he thrust his beak into the cool turf to refresh himself a little with it. Then the bird’s eye fell upon the daisy, and he nodded to it and kissed it with his beak, and said:
“You also must wither in here, poor little flower. They have given you to me with the little patch of green grass on which you grow, instead of the whole world which was mine out there! Every little blade of grass shall be a great tree for me, and every one of your fragrant leaves a great flower. Ah, you only tell me how much I have lost!”
“If I could only comfort him!” thought the daisy.
It could not stir a leaf; but the scent which streamed forth from its delicate leaves was far stronger than is generally found in these flowers; the bird also noticed that, and, though he was fainting with thirst, and in his pain plucked up the green blades of grass, he did not touch the flower.
The evening came on, and yet nobody appeared to bring the poor bird a drop of water. Then he stretched out his pretty wings and beat the air frantically with them; his song changed to a mournful piping, his little head sank down toward the flower, and the bird’s heart broke with want and yearning. Then the flower could not fold its leaves, as it had done on the previous evening, and sleep; it drooped, sorrowful and sick, toward the earth.
Not till the next morn did the boys come; and when they found the dead bird they wept – wept many tears, and dug him a neat grave, which they adorned with leaves and flowers.
The bird’s corpse was put into a pretty red box, for he was to be royally buried – the poor bird! While he was alive and sang they forgot him, and let him sit in his cage and suffer want; but now that he was dead he had adornment and many tears.
But the patch of turf with the daisy on it was thrown out into the high-road; no one thought of the flower that had felt the most for the little bird, and would have been so glad to console him.
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