How the First Baby Cuckoo 
themselves, and thought it beneath their 
dignity to do any work, looking down on 
those who did as quite common folk. So 
they flew about here and there amid 
hedgerows covered with hawthorn 
blossom like newly fallen snow, and 
trees whose freshly opened leaf-buds 
expanded more and more each day in 
the glad sunshine. Sometimes the 
spring showers dimpled the running 
streams and the little pools with falling 
rain-drops, making the fresh leaves and 
the bright green grass even lovelier and 
fresher than they appeared before ; but 
that didn’t trouble them much, for there 
was always the shelter of the woods to 
fly to, where the rain didn’t penetrate. 
And all the time Mr. Cuckoo, who was 
very proud of his voice, kept calling out, 
‘Cuckoo, cuckoo—summer is coming.’ 
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