And the reeds swayed in the balmy wind and the nest swayed and the eggs swayed that lay in the nest and the dear little brown bird that sat on the eggs. Even the husband swayed. For, when one rush sways, the other sways too; and he was sitting on one just beside the nest.

 

"You're no worse off than others, darling," he said. "Look down into the water and see for yourself."

 

"I can see nothing," she said sadly.

 

"Fiddlesticks!" said the reed-warbler. "You can peep over for a minute, if you sit down again at once."

 

And so she peeped over.

 

It was certainly very busy down below.

 

The pond-snail was swimming with her pointed¹ shell on her back. She stood right on her head in the water and made a boat of her broad foot, which lay level with the surface of the pond and supported the whole fabric². Then she stretched out her foot and the boat was gone and she went down to the bottom and stuck a whole heap of slimy eggs to the stalk of a water-lily.

 

The pike came and laid an egg in a water-milfoil bush. The carp did the same; and the perch³ hung a nice nest of eggs in between the reeds where the warblers had built their nest. The frog brought her eggs, the stickleback had almost finished his nest and hundreds of animals that were so small that one could hardly see them ran about and made ready for their young ones.

 

Just then, the eel⁴ put his head up out of the mud:

 

"If you will permit me, madam ... I have seen a bit of the world myself...."

 

Mrs. Reed-Warbler gave a faint scream.

 

"I can't stand that person," she said to her husband. "He's so like the adder⁵, who ate my little sister last year, when she fell to the ground as she was learning to fly. He has the same offensive manners and is just as slippery."

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