The King of the Birds
The thirteen little wrens sat on the Apple-yard wall in the King's Garden and their mother was there to teach them to fly. One called them the little wrens, but really each one was as big as their mother. She had a tail, however, that was most cunningly cocked and they had no tails, and the consequence was that when they made their little flights they always went sideways. Moreover, their beaks were still yellow and wide and open and this is always a sign of the young bird.
"All I ask of you," said the mother, "is that when you go into the World you remember that you are the Children of the King of the Birds."
"Now why does our Mother call us the Children of the King of the Birds?" said one little wren to the other. "I think we're really very small. And I think our Mother is very small. And there's our Father behind that ivy-leaf and he's very small too."
"And wherever you go, be sure to conduct yourselves like the Children of the King of the Birds," said the Mother.
"It's because we were reared in such a fine nest," said another little wren. "No other birds in the world had ever a finer nest than we have had. That's the reason we're called the Children of the King of the Birds."
"Men call the Wren the King of the Birds," said the Father Wren, as he flew up on a tree, "and surely men ought to know who is the King of the Birds."
"Why do men call the Wren the King of the Birds?" said the little wrens.