The old blackbird minister primped his shining feathers with his bill and growled senselessly. But the Sparrow was sad. “How cruel the birds are to one another,” he thought to himself. “I want to do something that will help all and am just laughed at. Can’t anybody understand me?”
“Hark, hark!” called a soft voice from a great height, and a young Lark shot downward as swift as lightning to the side of the sad Sparrow. “I understand you. Everybody jeers at me too, because I don’t fly close to the earth like they do, but always seek to fly higher and higher, into the blue sky. Do not be downcast, beloved brother, you will reach your goal.”
The young Lark flew quite close to the Sparrow, looked at him and said, “Fly a little for me, brother, so I can see how strong your wings are.”
The Sparrow flew up, hovering over the Lark.
As he returned she looked at him sadly and said earnestly, “Your wings cannot carry you over the great ocean, my poor friend. But you must not give up on account of that, you must do as men do, who cannot fly and yet travel all over the world. They [[24]]have invented a sort of house that swims over the water. They call it a ship. You must.…”
The Sparrow did not wait to hear the end. The two men had left during the conversation, and now the Sparrow saw them in the distance looking like two dark spots. Frightened, he cried. “My two men have left me,” and he flew after them as fast as he could.
When it grew dark, the men once again sneaked into a freight train. The Sparrow followed them and slept all night, while the black monster again took him over hills and mountains, past rivers and streams.
As dawn came, the two men crept out of the train and the Sparrow flew after them. They walked for a little while, then the Sparrow saw an immense body of water lying before him. Endless, extending beyond his vision, this blue-gray body of water extended, and on its surface stormed wild, white-capped, monstrously high billows.
So this was the ocean! Never had the Sparrow felt so small and helpless as at the sight of this dreadful water. What was he in comparison to this? A poor, helpless little bird, a tiny something. Deep sighs lifted his little breast, from his bright eyes the tears fell. “If I were only at home, in the safe little nest,” cried he to himself. “I could creep under mother’s wings as I did when I was little.”
The waves roared dismally, threateningly; the white froth squirted upwards. The two men walked unconcernedly on the damp, sandy ground. With beating heart the Sparrow followed them. And then he saw something surprising. In a great bay some strange things tossed. They were something like a house, but had few windows and tall chimneys from which streamed heavy grey smoke; some things that looked like a forest; bare trees without branches seemed to grow in it. Although these trees bore neither fruit not leaves, the Sparrow was delighted to see them. They gave him confidence. [[25]]He began to feel at home. But how strange it was that these houses with trees on them were tossed up and down by the waves. Suddenly the Sparrow remembered the words of the Lark. “Men call these houses that swim on the water ‘ships’.” So these were ships! On one of these tossing, swimming houses he would journey to warm lands.