“Chug-a-rum!” began Grandfather Frog, as he always does. “When Old Mother Nature first peopled the Great World, she made each bird a little different from every other bird, and each animal a little different from every other animal. Then she turned them loose to make their way the best they could, and let them alone to test them and see how each would make the best of his advantages. Mr. Swift, the great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather of Sooty, felt at first as if Old Mother Nature had forgotten to give him any advantages at all. He was homely. There wasn't so much as a single bright feather in his whole coat. He had a tail which might as well have been no tail at all, so far as he could see. He had tiny feet on which he couldn't walk at all, and with which it was all he could do to hang on to a twig when he wanted to rest. But when it came to wings, he wasn't long in discovering that in these he was blessed beyond most of his neighbors. Those wings certainly were made for speed. They were long and narrow, and they drove him through the air faster than his neighbors with broader wings could fly and with a great deal less effort. He could fly all day without getting tired, and he never was so happy as when darting about high in the air.
“Of course, it didn't take him long to find out that he could catch all kinds of flying insects, and so he had no trouble in filling his stomach while flying, for his mouth was very wide. 'It must be,' thought he, 'that Old Mother Nature expects me to live in the air. I wish I could sleep while I am flying, but I can't. I never feel comfortable sitting on a twig.'
“One day he discovered that he could do something that no other bird could do. By using his wings in a certain way he could drop right straight down without really falling. He practised this a great deal just for fun. Then one day as he was flying over a rocky place, he saw right under him a great hole that went straight down into the ground. It interested him. He wondered what it was like inside. The more he wondered, the more he wanted to find out. So one day, after many trials, he dropped straight down into the hole by means of that new way of flying he had discovered.
“He didn't go very far down, because it was so dark in there, and he was beginning to get a wee bit frightened. On his way up he brushed against the side of the rocky wall and without knowing why, he put out both feet and clung to it, folding his wings for a minute's rest. Then he found that by pressing his funny little tail, which ended in sharp spines, against the wall, he rested more comfortably than ever he had before in all his short life. He could cling to a rough wall very much easier than he could sit on a perch. After that he spent his nights in that hole and was happy.
“A long time later he was far from home when night was coming on, and he knew that he wouldn't be able to get there before dark. Looking down as he flew, he saw the hollow trunk of a great tree which had been broken off by the wind. Why not sleep in that? He circled over it two or three times and then dropped straight down inside. He liked it. He liked it better than he did the hole in the rocks. After that he made his home in a hollow tree.
“In course of time old King Eagle led the birds to a new part of the Great World which Old Mother Nature had been preparing for them to spend the summer in. Mr. Swift went with the others. But when he got there, he could find no hole in the ground and no hollow tree. But he found something else. He found the queer homes of men and on top of each a straight, tall thing quite like a hollow tree, only all black inside and made of what seemed like stone. Having no other place to go, he tried one of them. The next day he searched for a hollow tree but could find none, and so returned to that chimney, for that is what it was. So it was every day. After a little he began to like the chimney. It was easy to get in and out of. No one ever bothered him there. It was easy to cling to the wall of it. At last he decided to build a nest there. And from that day to this, the Swifts have lived in the chimneys on the houses of men. When you thought you saw Sooty fall, he was simply going home to spend the night,” concluded Grandfather Frog.
“Thank you,” replied Peter with a long sigh. “It's a funny world, isn't it, Grandfather Frog? The idea of living in a chimney! The very idea!”