All
nature seemed to rejoice in the fine weather. The
corn-blades shot up strong and tall. They burst
into flowers and gradually ripened into ears of
grain. But alas! the Master of the Harvest had
still some fault to find. He looked at the ears
and saw that they were small. He grumbled and
said:--
``The yield will be less than it ought to be. The
harvest will be bad.''
And the voice of his discontent was breathed
over the cornfield where the plants were growing
and growing. They shuddered and murmured:
``How thankless to complain! Are we not growing
as fast as we can? If we were idle would we
bear wheat-ears at all? How thankless to complain!''
Meanwhile a few weeks went by and a drought
settled on the land. Rain was needed, so that the
corn-ears might fill. And behold, while the wish
for rain was yet on the Master's lips, the sky
became full of heavy clouds, darkness spread over
the land, a wild wind arose, and the roaring of
thunder announced a storm. And such a storm!
Along the ridges of corn-plants drove the rain-
laden wind, and the plants bent down before it
and rose again like the waves of the sea. They
bowed down and they rose up. Only where the
whirlwind was the strongest they fell to the
ground and could not rise again.
And when the storm was over, the Master of
the Harvest saw here and there patches of over-
weighted corn, yet dripping from the thunder-
shower, and he grew angry with them, and forgot
to think of the long ridges where the corn-plants
were still standing tall and strong, and where the
corn-ears were swelling and rejoicing.
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