Stranica 178 [178]
OCR
LABOULAYE 5 FAIRY BOOK his mother’s eye, nor did he trouble himself any more about his father, who bristled his plumage and seemed about to call him back. Without caring for those whom he left behind, he glided through the half-open door and, once outside, flapped his only wing and crowed three times, to celebrate his freedom—** Cock-a-doodle-doo!”’ As he half flew, half hopped over the fields, he came to the bed of a brook which had been dried up by the sun. In the middle of the sands, however, still trickled a tiny thread of water, so small that 1t was choked by a couple of dead leaves that had fallen into it. “My friend,” exclaimed the streamlet at the sight of our traveler—‘‘ my friend, you see my weakness; I have not even the strength to carry away these leaves which obstruct my passage, much less to make a circuit, so completely am I exhausted. With a stroke of your beak you can restore me to life. Jam not an ingrate; if you oblige me, you may count on my gratitude the first ramy day, when the water from heaven shall have restored my strength." “You are jesting,”’ said Coquerico. "Do I look like one whose business it 1s to sweep the brooks? Apply to those of your own sort.” And with his sound leg, he leaped across the streamlet. “You will remember me when you least expect it,” murmured the brook, but with so feeble a voice that it was lost on the proud cock. 140
