TWO EARS. 217 



" My donkey is so contrary that I can't ride him for pleasnre,' 

 he would say, "and my dog is so stupid that he would surely get 

 lost. Of course, my cat wouldn't care to go. What a lazy old cat 

 she is ! " 



And so it happened that as he wandered about listening to the 

 birds his two ears grew very sharp, so sharp, indeed, that finally he 

 heard a great deal that was worth hearing besides the songs of the 

 birds. He heard the crickets chirping and the bees humming, the 

 whirr of the locusts' wings and the laughter of the brooks, the 

 rustling of the leaves in the wind and the crackling of the twigs 

 under his feet. 



" Oh, the world is full of music," he would say. " How glad I 

 am of my two ears ! ' ' 



Those days, so happy for Zekko, were hard for the rest of the 

 family, who felt sad and lonely with their master gone so much ; 

 and every night they groaned and moaned and sighed in their 

 sleep. But Zekko did not hear them (for his ears were not yet as 

 sharp as they might be), until at last one night, when he was lying 

 awake in his bed listening to the music of the great waterfall, which 

 had never seemed so grand before, he began to think about the 

 other three. The more he thought about them the more he pitied 

 them ; and the more he pitied them, the sharper grew his ears — so 

 sharp, in fact, that above the roar of the waterfall he could hear 

 the donkey in the shed, and the dog at the foot of the bed, and the 

 cat lying on the mat, all tossing about uneasily aud talking in their 

 sleep. The donkey was groaning : " He thinks me contrary, but 

 alas ! I have only one ear." The dog was moaning : " He thinks 

 me stupid, but alas ! I have only one ear." And the cat was sigh- 

 ing : " He thinks me lazy, but alas ! I have only one ear." 



Then Zekko was ashamed to think how cruel he had been to the 

 rest of the family, and he wished that he might help them. He 

 remembered how a good fairy, who lived a hundred miles beyond 

 the mountain, had come to him once and promised to give him any- 

 thing he might need for others, but it must be something he could 

 not buy. It had never occurred to Zekko before that the poor 

 cretures who lived with him needed anything besides food, but now 

 he knew that they wanted two ears as well as he. 



The next day he went off on his long journey, walking all the 

 way so that what he brought back might be a joyful surprise to the 

 the donkey as well as the rest. A hundred miles beyond the moun- 

 tain the fairy was waiting for him with a bag in her hand. 



