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Soft, creamy-hued vegetable cotton, pressed and felted into a certain firmness of consistency, formed the structure, and a close covering of lichens held it in shape and completed its beauty, while giving an apple-branch tone that made it almost invisible. An inch in depth and the same in breadth furnished ample quarters for the twin hummingbird babies whose home it was.
People of every description entered the room, and, according to their position in society, so dared they to express their admiration. Some few said nothing, others expressed too much, and the apple-branch very soon got to understand that there was as much difference in the characters of human beings as in those of plants and flowers.
"See," she exclaimed, "how wonderfully God has made this little flower. I will paint it with the apple-branch together. Every one admires the beauty of the apple-bough; but this humble flower has been endowed by Heaven with another kind of loveliness; and although they differ in appearance, both are the children of the realms of beauty."
So thought the apple-branch, as he stood before the open window, from which he could see out over gardens and fields, where there were flowers and plants enough for him to think and reflect upon; some rich and beautiful, some poor and humble indeed. "Poor, despised herbs," said the apple-branch; "there is really a difference between them and such as I am.
"You do not see very far, nor very clearly," he said to the apple-branch. "Which is the despised plant you so specially pity?" "The dandelion," he replied. "No one ever places it in a nosegay; it is often trodden under foot, there are so many of them; and when they run to seed, they have flowers like wool, which fly away in little pieces over the roads, and cling to the dresses of the people.
Pure white curtains fluttered before the open windows, and beautiful flowers stood in shining, transparent vases; and in one of them, which looked as if it had been cut out of newly fallen snow, the apple-branch was placed, among some fresh, light twigs of beech. It was a charming sight. Then the branch became proud, which was very much like human nature.
So one day I rose half an hour earlier than common on purpose to have a look at my little matutinal serenader. My conjecture proved correct. There sat the tit, within a few feet of his apple-branch door, throwing back his head in the truest lyrical fashion, and calling Hear, hear me, with only a breathing space between the repetitions of the phrase.
"Take care, Miss Brandt," she added, stooping to avoid an apple-branch. "Take care? oh, for that branch!" said Miss Brandt, and avoided it as charmingly and coquettishly as if it had been living. "It was very gay," she added, "even more so than wedding-parties commonly are; but this was caused a good deal by Counsellor Bagger." "So!" "Yes, he was very gay ... I was his companion at table. "Ah!"
A meadow lark perched on a swaying apple-branch above Martha's grave, and poured out his soul in grateful melody; and Timothy, wakened by Nature's sweet good-morning, leaped from the too fond embrace of Miss Vilda's feather-bed.... And lo, a miracle!... The woodbine clung close to the wall beneath his window.
"Poor, despised plants," said the apple-bough, "it is not your fault that you are so ugly, and that you have such an ugly name; but it is with plants as with men, there must be a difference." "A difference!" cried the sunbeam, as he kissed the blooming apple-branch, and then kissed the yellow dandelion out in the fields.
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