“You can!” said the fairy, waving her wand but once; and immediately some-thing like a melodious sneeze flew into his head and set it shaking.
“Chiou! chiou! True-true-true-true! Jug! jug! Oh, beautiful! beautiful!” His beak went dabbling in the sweet sound, rippling it this way and that, spraying it abroad out of his blissful heart as a jewel throws out its fires.
The fairy was gone; but the little Jackdaw sprang up into the high elm, and sang on endlessly through the whole night.
At dawn he stopped, and looking down, there he saw the family getting ready for breakfast, and wondering what had become of him. Just as they were saying grace he flew in, his little heart beating with joy over his new-found treasure. What a jewel of a voice he had: better than all the pieces of glass and chips of platter lying down there in the nest! As soon as the parent-birds had finished grace, he lifted his voice and thanked God that the thing he had wished for had become true.
None of them understood what he said, but they paid him plenty of attention. All his brothers and sisters put up their heads and giggled, as the young do when one of their number misbehaves.
“Don’t make that noise!” said his mother; “it’s not decent!”
“It’s low!” said the father-bird.
The littlest young Jackdaw was overwhelmed with astonishment. When he tried to explain, his unseemly melodies led to his immediate expulsion from the family circle. Such noises, he was told, could only be made in private; when he had quite got over them he might come back,—but not until.
He never got over them; so he never came back. For a few days he hid himself in different trees of the garden, and sang the praises of sorrow; but his family, though they comprehended him not, recognised his note, and came searching him with beak and claw, and drove him out so as not to have him near them committing such scandalous noises to the ears of the public.
“He lies in his throat!” said the old Jackdaw. “Everything he says he garbles. If he is our son he must have been hatched on the wrong side of the nest!”