A mussel was sunning itself by the river bank, when a bittern came by and and pecked at it. The mussel closed its shell and nipped the bird's beak. Hereupon the bittern said, 'If you don't let me go to-day, if you don't let me go to-morrow, there will be a dead mussel.' The shell-fish answered, ' If I don't come out to-day, if I don't come out to-morrow, there will surely be a dead bittern.' Just then a fisherman came by and seized the pair of them." The moral of which word to the wise will be sufficiently obvious to the youngest reader.
Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Fables, Myths, Legends, and Historical Stories