He opened one written by a Bittern, signed and crossed by many supporters. It ran as follows:—
“The undersigned declare that they have had enough of civil discords and of preliminary proceedings, and suggest that the white Blackbird should now be called upon to relate his history.”
“I like this petition,” said the Fox, “as it enables us to dispense with opening the others. The others may make a bonfire.”
No sooner said than done. They were burned.
HISTORY OF A WHITE BLACKBIRD.
HOW glorious and yet how painful it is to be an exceptional Blackbird! I am not a fabulous bird. M. de Buffon has described me. But, alas! I am of an exceedingly rare type, very difficult to find, and one that ought, I think, never to have existed.
My parents were worthy birds, who lived in an old out-of-the-way kitchen-garden. Ours was a most exemplary home. While my mother laid regularly three times a year, my father, though old and petulant, still grubbed round the tree in which she sat, bringing her the daintiest insect fare. When night closed round the scene, he never missed singing his well-known song, to the delight of the neighbourhood. No domestic grief, quarrel, or cloud of any sort had marred this happy union.
Hardly had I left my shell, when my father, for the first time in his life, thoroughly lost his temper. Although I was of a doubtful grey, he neither recognised in me the colour nor the shape of his numerous posterity.
“This is a most doubtful child,” he used to say, as he cast a side glance at me, “neither white nor black, as dirty-looking as he seems ill-begotten.”