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The chicken market, and other fairy tales
The chicken market and other fairy tales Author:Henry Morley Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE AECHITECT. A Man possessed a piece of woodland near a rock. He cut down trees. " Faugh !" cried a Rook. " You fell the trees in which you could have re... more »sted. Had you come to me I could have let you know the use of trees." " I have a house to build," said the man. " Well," said the Rook, " sticks and straws can be had -without cutting the trees down, I believe." The man hewed at the rock. Capricorn looked down from above, and grinned oVer his beard as he called his brother goats about him. "Ah, ha!" he said, "observe that creature's low comprehension of this glorious rock, with its mosses and its grassy clefts. He cuts it into little squares ! Look at his piles of little squares, and not even a blade of grass on one of them !" All the goats bleated at the man in mockery, and Capricorn cried to him, " Come up, fellow, and we who are at home among the rocks will teach you something." " Pardon me, hoary father," said the man; "I have a house to build." The man heaped lime together, and fetched water from a pool in which some geese were swimming. " S-s-see," said the Gander, " how you splash me, and befoul the water too. What do you want 1" " Excuse me, Gaffer Gander," said the man; " I have a house to build." "A house to build!" the Gander said. "You don't build houses of water, I suppose !" All the geese hissed at the man for his folly, but he drew the water that he wanted. "A pretty mess you're making of it!" said a Spider to the man when he was stirring up his mortar. " House, do you say ? Look at my architecture and compare it with that heap of slime. You would have saved yourself much shame if you had only come to me for an idea." The man dug at the foundations of his house and struck wrath into the hearts of all the moles. " Why," one of them ...« less