1

A LITTLE stream ran between trees and bushes. Along the banks stood tall, slender reeds and whispered to the wind. In the middle of the water floated the water-lily, with her white flower and her broad, green leaves.

Generally the water was very still, but when, as sometimes happened, the wind went for a trip over the surface of the stream, then the reeds rustled and the water-lilies dived right down under the water and the leaves flew up or to either side, so that the thick green stalks, which came all the way from the bottom, found it difficult to hold them tight.

All day long, a dragon-fly grub crept up and down the water-lily’s stem.

“What a terrible bore it must be,” said the grub, looking up at the flowers, “to be a water-lily!”

“You speak of things which you don’t understand,” replied the water-lily. “It is just the pleasantest thing in the world.”

“Well, I can’t understand that,” said the grub. “I should always want to be tearing myself free and flying round like a great, splendid dragon-fly.”

“Nonsense!” said the water-lily. “A fine pleasure that would be! No, to lie peacefully on the water and dream and to drink sunshine and now and again to rock upon the waves: there’s some sense in that.”

The grub reflected for a moment and then said:

“I have higher aspirations. If I could have my way, I should be a dragon-fly. I should skim over the water on great stiff wings, kiss the white flowers, rest for a second on your leaves and then fly on again.”

“You are ambitious,” said the water-lily, “and that is silly. Wise people know when they are well off. May I make so free as to ask you what you would propose to do to turn into a dragon-fly? You don’t look as if you were made for one. In any case, you must see that you grow up prettier; you’re very gray and ugly now.”

“Yes, that’s the pity of it,” said the grub, a little disheartened. “I myself don’t know how it is to happen; but I still hope that it will. That’s why I crawl around here and eat all the little insects I can catch.”

“Ah, so you think you can eat yourself into something big!” said the water-lily, mockingly. “That would be a pleasant way of improving one’s condition.”

“Yes, but I believe it’s the right way for me!” cried the dragon-fly grub. “I shall eat and eat all day, till I grow stout and fat, and then, one fine morning, I hope my fat will change into wings with gold on them and all the rest that a real dragon-fly wants.”

The water-lily shook her wise white head:

“Let those foolish thoughts be,” she said, “and learn to be contented with your lot. You can now live in peace and quiet among my leaves and creep up and down my stalk as much as ever you like. You have plenty of food and no cares nor worries: what more can you want?”

“You have an inferior nature,” answered the grub, “and therefore you have no sense of higher things. I want to become a dragon-fly!”

And then she crept down to the bottom to catch lots of little insects and eat herself fatter than ever.

The water-lily lay quietly on the water and reflected:

“I can’t understand animals!” she said to herself. “They do nothing but dance about from morn till night, hunt and eat one another and know no moment’s peace. We flowers are more sensible. We grow up calmly and placidly, side by side, drink sunshine and rain and take everything as it comes. And I am the luckiest of them all. How often have I not floated contentedly here on the water, while the other flowers were suffering from the drought on land! We flowers are by far the happier; but that is what those stupid animals fail to see.”

2

When the sun set in the evening, the dragon-fly grub lay very still on the stalk with her legs drawn up under her. She had eaten a heap of insects and was so fat that she felt as though she would burst. And yet she was not glad: she pondered on what the water-lily had said and could not sleep all night for restless thinking. And all that reflecting made her head ache, for it was a labour to which she was not used. And she felt pains in her back too and in her chest. It was as though she were going to be pulled to pieces and die on the spot.

When morning began to break, she could bear it no longer:

“I don’t know what it is,” she cried in despair. “These pains hurt so that I can’t think what is to become of me. Perhaps the water-lily is right and I shall never be more than a poor, wretched grub. But the thought of that is too terrible! I should so love to turn into a dragon-fly and fly about in the sun. Oh, my back, my back! I must be dying!”

Again she felt as if her back was bursting and she screamed for pain. At the same moment, the reeds on the bank began to rustle.

“That is the morning-wind,” thought the grub. “At least, let me see the sun once more before I die.”

And, with a great effort, she crawled to one of the leaves of the water-lily, stretched out her legs and prepared for death.

But, when the sun had risen and stood red and motionless in the east, suddenly there came an opening right in the middle of the grub’s back, accompanied by a frightful itching. Oh, the pain of it, the anguish! It was a terrible feeling. Almost swooning, she closed her eyes, but the agony and the itching grew no less. And then, suddenly, she perceived that the pain was gone; and, when she opened her eyes, she was hovering through the air on stiff, glittering wings, a brilliant dragon-fly! Beneath her, on the leaf of the water-lily, lay the ugly gray covering which she had worn as a grub.

“Hurrah!” cried the new dragon-fly. “Now the wish of my heart is fulfilled.”

And she flew through the air as swiftly as though she meant to fly to the end of the earth.

“The hussy has got her way after all!” thought the water-lily. “Now we shall see if she is more contented than before.”

3

Two days later, the dragon-fly came flying up and settled on the flowers of the water-lily.

“Good-morning,” said the water-lily. “So you’ve come at last. I was beginning to think that you had grown too grand to come and see your old friends.”

“Good-morning,” said the dragon-fly. “Where shall I lay my eggs?”

“Oh, you’ll find a place somewhere,” replied the flower. “Sit down first and tell me if you are happier now than when you were an ugly little grub crawling up and down my stalk.”

“Where can I lay my eggs? Oh, wherever can I lay my eggs?” cried the dragon-fly and flew buzzing from leaf to leaf, laying one here and one there, and at last sat down, tired and exhausted, on a leaf.

“Well?” said the water-lily.

“Oh, I was much better off then,” sighed the dragon-fly. “The sunshine is glorious and it is a great delight to fly over the water, but I never have time to enjoy it. I tell you, I’m awfully busy. In the old days, I had nothing to think of. And now I have to fly about all day long to lay these silly eggs. I haven’t a moment to myself and have hardly time to eat.”

“What did I tell you?” cried the water-lily, triumphantly. “Didn’t I prophesy that your happiness would be no greater?”

“Good-bye,” said the dragon-fly, with a sigh. “I have no time to listen to you: I must go and lay more eggs.”

But, just as she was about to fly away, the starling came:

“I say, I say, what a dear little dragon-fly!” he said. “Just a nice little mouthful for my youngsters!”And with a whizz! he snapped up the dragon-fly in his beak and flew away with her.

“There they go!” cried the water-lily, shaking her leaves with anger. “Those animals, those animals! What extraordinary creatures they are. I must say I prefer my own quiet life. I hurt nobody and no one injures me. I am so hap....”

She got no further, for a boat glided close past her.

“Oh, what a lovely water-lily!” said Ellen, who sat in the stern. “I must have it.”

She bent over the side and tore the flower away. When she got home, she put it into a glass of water, where it stood for three days with a lot of other flowers.

“I don’t know what to think,” said the water-lily, on the fourth day. “I have not fared a whit better than that poor dragon-fly.”

“The flowers are faded,” said Ellen and threw them out of the window.

And the water-lily lay with her fair white petals on the dirty ground.

AUNT EIDER-DUCK