Then, one morning, the maiden-pink felt strangely unwell.  
Her stalks and leaves were slack and she had a regular pain in her roots. Her flowers were so queer and loose, she thought.
 
When she complained of not being well, the sheep's-scabious and the bell-flower said that it was just the same with them. So did the blades of grass, but that did not count, for they always agreed with any one they were talking to. The said nothing, but that did not signify either, for nobody asked him.
 
"We want rain," said the hazel-bush. "There's nothing else the matter. It doesn't affect me yet, but I suppose it will. You are so short and slender; that's why you feel it first."
 
The blades of grass nodded and thought that this was well said on the part of the hazel-bush. The others hung their heads. The linnet sang as best he could to cheer the sick friends.
 
But sick they were and sick they remained; and it grew worse every day.
 
"I think I'm dying," said the maiden-pink.
 
The blades of grass observed, most politely, that they were already half-dead. The hazel-bush was not feeling well either and the linnet thought the air so heavy that he was not at all inclined to sing.
 
And, while they were talking about all this, towards the evening, they heard the same complaint in the whispering that came from the great wood, in the bell of the stag and the bay of the fox and the of the frog and the of the mouse in her hole. The and the farmer went past and talked about it; they looked up at the bright sky and shook their heads:
 
"We shall have no rain to-morrow either," said the ranger. "My small trees are dying."
 
"And my corn is being blighted," said the farmer.
 
Next morning, the friends became seriously alarmed when they looked at one another.
 
They were hardly recognizable, so ill did they appear, with yellow, hanging leaves and faded flowers and dry roots. Only the moss looked as usual.
 
"Don't you feel anything?" asked the hazel-bush.
 
"Yes, I do," said the moss. "But it doesn't show in me. I might lie here and be dead for a whole month and all the time look as if I were alive and well. I can't help it."
 
"I shall go up and look for a cloud," said the linnet.
 
And he went up in the air, so high that he was quite lost to the others, and he came back and said that there was a cloud far away in the west.
 
"Ask him to come," said the bell-flower, in a faint voice.
 
And the linnet flew up again and came back presently with the sad answer that the cloud could not:
 
"He would like to," said the linnet. "He is tired of hanging up there with all that rain. But he has to wait till the wind comes for him."
 
"Good-bye," said the maiden-pink. "And thank you for the pleasant time we have had together. I can hold out no longer."
 
And then she died. All the friends looked at one another in dismay:
 
"We must get hold of the wind," said the hazel-bush, who had more life left in him than the others. "Else it will be all up with every one of us."
 
Next morning early, the wind came stealing along. He came quite slowly, for he too was tired of the intolerable dry heat; but he had to go his rounds for all that.
 
"Dear Wind," said the sheep's-scabious. "Bring us a little cloud, or we shall all be dead."
 
"There is no cloud," said the wind.
 
"That's not true, Wind," said the linnet. "There's a beautiful grey cloud far away in the w............