—HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN.
[THE WHITE BLACKBIRD]
I
I was born a blackbird in a bushy thicket near a meadow. My father took good care of his family and would peck about all day for insects. These he brought home to my mother, holding them by the tail so as not to mash them. He had a sweet voice, too, and every evening sang beautiful songs.
I should have been happy, but I was not. I ate little and was weak; and from the first, I was different from my brothers and sisters. They had glossy, black feathers, while mine were dirty gray. These made my father angry whenever he looked at them.
When I moulted for the first time, he watched me closely. While the feathers were falling out and while I was naked, he was kind; but my new feathers drove him wild with anger. I did not wonder. I was no longer even gray; I had become snow white. I was a white blackbird! Did such a thing ever happen in a blackbird family before?
It made me very sad to see my father so vexed over me. But it is hard to stay sad forever, and one sunshiny spring day I opened my bill and began to sing. At the first note my father flew up into the air like a sky-rocket.
"What do I hear?" he cried. "Is that the way a blackbird whistles? Do I whistle that way?"
"I whistle the best I can," I replied.