The Magic Flutes/The Nut

In a leafy grove, beneath a cliff, the Squirrels, counselling among themselves decided to give a circus. So their chief hopped upon a stump and trumpeted the news far and wide:

“Today will be held_ a remarkable performance to which we respectfully invite the whole forest. A company of my sons and daughters will make such leaps from bough to bough as can only be seen once in a hundred years! At the end, the master-jumper will climb to the top-most branch of yonder ash, and boldly, as if for a wager, he will sail down on his tail. Such a flight, such a wonder of wonders no one has ever seen in his life! And the price ​to view all this is only one nut.”

A Kid, who came from a poor Goat family, heard this announcement, but alack-a-day, he had no nut. His legs and he decided to run down the slope to the brook, where a hazel sapling stood. At its top waved a cluster of nuts.

“Bend down to me, O hazel sapling,“ begged the Kid. “I can’t reach your nuts so high in the air. If you will give me just one, I shall skip—with joy!“

The sapling laughed: “No, no! My nuts are still too green.“

Next a Rabbit came from the glade and offered to trade his slice of bread for a nut. Then a Lamb ran up from the clearing with a small loaf to exchange for one. And lastly a darling Fawn came from the grove with a muffin. But the little shoot repeated to them all: “No, no! My nuts are still too green.“

The Kid bleated: “Maa, maa, maa. Then we shall bend you to the ground!“ And the animals, enraged at the sapling’s selfishness, pulled at its slender trunk. But the Kid ​ pulled to the right, the Rabbit to the left, the Lamb to the front; and the Fawn to the back! Each one tried to pull it a different way. And the sapling stood unshaken, rattling its muts with mirth.

“Maa, maa, maa!“ bleated the Kid again, “we’ll ask the Mouse’s son for help!“

The fourth Mouse son was passing by. “If you would succeed,“ he said, “you must all pull together as if you were one!“

On his flute the Mouse son played a tune and, hearing it, the youngsters ran to the tree and pulled with one accord, straight to the front.

At once the sapling began to bend. Down it came, lower and lower, until the nuts were within reach.

The friends each took one. Whistling gaily, they ran up the slope as fast as the wind and raced each other to the show.

The Kid, not slowing his pace, threw-his nut on the admission plate and dropped down in the shade of ​ ​an ash tree glancing proudly around him, like a lord. Turning to the Squirrel actors he said haughtily: “Gentlemen, kindly begin your stunts.“

The trumpets resounded from the cliff. The Squirrels bowed and smiled. Then they began to leap and fly: a bird could have done no more!

The Kid hardly breathed. He gazed and gazed at them. Secretly he thought: “Gracious me, at home I’ll try all that, too! I’ll leap heels-over-head over every stump and beam and fence I find. And when I equal you gentlemen, I, too, will join a circus.“