Article January 18, 1900 Issue

A Lesson from the Birds

BY ALTA GRETTON

I was sitting in my doorway one day thinking. All at once a little bird flew down almost at my feet. I thought, "Dear little bird, I will watch you, and perhaps you will have a lesson for me;" and it did.

The second look showed me it was young bird, and the mother-bird was just beginning to teach it to fly. The mother bird flew down with it, and after chirping to it for a little while, flew away, as much as to say, "Now I have cared for you long enough, it is time you worked for yourself." The little bird remained right in one place for quite a while, calling loudly for the mother bird, but she did not come near it, although I could see her sitting on a branch of a tree watching the little bird that no harm should come to it. At last the little bird started to hop along, always trying to get up higher, and at last it hopped up on an ash-heap, just to the very highest point it could reach, and then holding its little head up towards the sky, it quietly waited. I had noticed that all the time it always looked up, never down. Never did it look down upon the ugly ash-heap where it stood, but always up—up, into the beautiful sky where the sun shone so brightly.

After it had got just as high up as it could get it quietly waited. Waited ever and ever so long, for it knew that in time the dear mother bird would come to its rescue,—and it did not have to wait in vain; for after the mother bird saw that it had done its part, she came to it bringing its dinner. Then after a little more chirping the mother bird at last convinced it that it had nothing to fear, and that it could fly, and together they flew away,—only a little way, just to the first branch of the lowest tree—but that little proved the whole, and in a very short time it flew far away—far away from all ash-heaps into the beautiful reality that it was free.

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