She did not heed him. She spread her wide wings and swept and circled far and high above—as, in truth, she had been doing for many days, though he had not noticed it.
She dropped to the ridge-pole beside him where he was still muttering objections. "Is it not glorious!" she cried. "Come! They are nearly ready!"
"You unnatural Mother!" he burst forth. "You have forgotten the Order of Nature! You have forgotten your Children! Your lovely precious tender helpless Little Ones!" And he wept—for his highest ideals were shattered.
But the Precious Little Ones stood in a row on the ridge-pole and flapped their strong young wings in high derision. They were as big as he was, nearly; for as a matter of fact he was but a Young Stork himself.
Then the air was beaten white with a thousand wings, it was like snow and silver and seafoam, there was a flashing whirlwind, a hurricane of wild joy and then the Army of the Sky spread wide in due array and streamed Southward.
Full of remembered joy and more joyous hope, finding the high sunlight better than her dreams, she swept away to the far summerland; and her children, mad with the happiness of the First Flight, swept beside her.
"But you are a Mother!" he panted, as he caught up with them.
"Yes!" she cried, joyously, "but I was a Stork before I was A Mother! and afterward!—and All the Time!"
And the Storks were Flying.