As the winter passed and the days grew warm and bright, Blue-wings found himself dreaming of his old free life most of the time, and between the dreams the longing to fly and sing was stronger than ever. One day the window next his cage was left wide open and through it the soft south wind brought the fragrance of the apple blossoms, and the whir and hum of the little creatures who were busy greeting the spring time. Suddenly Blue-wings felt as if he must fly and sing or his heart would break. And then—was it a dream, he wondered—he lifted his wings and flew right out of the window. Through the orchard he darted, above the blossoming trees, his blue wings flashing in the sunshine. Even his father’s wings were not as splendidly blue as his, and they were so strong!
It was no dream now, he knew; it was all true. And as he mounted higher and higher he sang a song so clear and sweet and joyful that the farmer ploughing in the field stopped, and listened with tears in his eyes. Blue-wing’s song made him think of the tossing sea he had lived beside when he was a boy. And the little girl heard it, as she stood at the farm-house door, and she stood smiling up into the blue sky with thoughts of angels in her heart.
“Did Blue-wings ever come back to the little girl,” you ask? He never came back to the cage or the farm-house kitchen, but he lived in the orchard and had a nest there. And whenever the child saw a wonderfully blue glimmer through the branches, or heard a most beautiful bird’s song, she knew that Blue-wings was near. And she remembered that it was through her love and her care that he had lived and grown strong, able to take his place as king of the orchard, able by his song to bring into people’s hearts happiness too great for words.
AN EASTERN LEGEND
Grace Duffield Goodwin
There’s a tender eastern legend,
In a volume old and rare
Of the Christ Child in his garden,