The Nightingale felt very sore about this matter, and tried to conceal her misfortune from the other birds.  She managed to cock her head the other way whenever she met a friend, and she always flew past any stranger so fast that he never saw the empty socket where her other pretty eye should be.

But one day there was great excitement among the birds.  Miss Jenny Wren was going to be married to young Cock Robin.  There was to be a grand wedding; every one was invited, and of course the Nightingale was needed to lead the bridal chorus of feathered songsters.  But the poor Nightingale was set in a flutter of anxiety by the news.

“Oh, dear me!” she said, “I do want to go to Jenny’s wedding, oh, of course I do!  But how can I go?  If I do, the other birds will discover that I have but one eye, and then how the disagreeable creatures will laugh at me.  Oh dear, oh dear!  What shall I do?  I cannot go, no, I really cannot.  But what excuse can I give?  Oh, it is not right that the sweetest singer in all Birdland should be laughed at, merely because she has the misfortune to lack one poor little eye!”

The Nightingale sat on the branch, singing so mournfully that all the creatures on the ground below went sorrowfully about their daily business.  Just then the Nightingale spied a silvery gleam among the dead leaves.  It was the Blindworm, a spotted gray streak, writhing noiselessly along towards the decayed wood of a fallen tree, in which he loved to burrow.  And the Blindworm was not sad like the others, neither seemed he to care in the least about the Nightingale’s music.  Worms think little of sweet sounds.  He cocked his one eye up towards the Nightingale and winked maliciously.  He alone of all creatures knew the Nightingale’s secret.

“Good-day, Sister Nightingale,” he said.  “How is your eye this morning?  We have a goodly pair between us; though I think that mine is rather the better of the two.”

Then he disappeared into a tiny opening.  For though the Blindworm is nearly a foot long he is so smooth and slippery that he can enter a hole which is almost smaller than himself.

The Nightingale was very indignant at being addressed in this familiar way by a miserable, crawling creature who not only could not fly, but who could not sing a note, and did not know do from fa.  Besides, it made her angry to think that he knew her secret and talked aloud about it so that any one might hear.

“The idea!” she cried.  “It is bad enough that I cannot go to the wedding of my dear friend Jenny.  But to be jeered at by this creature, it is more than I can bear.  Ha!  I have an idea.  I will punish him and help myself at the same time.  I will steal his one eye and wear it to Jenny Wren’s wedding; then no one will ever discover my misfortune.”

Now this was an excellent scheme, but it was not so easy to carry it out as the Nightingale had thought.  For the Blindworm was very timid and kept himself carefully hidden in his burrow of soft soil, as if he half suspected the Nightingale’s plans.  Day after day the Nightingale kept eager watch upon his movements, and at last, on the very eve of the wedding, when she had almost given up hope, she spied the Blindworm sound asleep on the moss under a tall tree.