HOW THE LITTLE BIRD REACHED HOME
The protection of helpless birds is a virtue that should be encouraged.
Surrounded by brick tenement houses where lived the families who worked in the great cotton mill is a little park where the children from the Kindergarten love to go. There in the springtime they watch the butterflies, the rainbow as the sun shines upon the spray of the fountain, the little fishes and frogs in the fountain, and the birds in the trees.
By the fountain stood an old oak tree where two little birds had built a wonderful house. In the body of the tree was the home of a red-headed woodpecker, and at the foot of the tree some dear little squirrels lived, and were very happy.
After a while there were three little baby birds in the nest, and the Kindergarten children were as much excited as the mother and father birds. One day the mother and father bird had flown away to find food for the baby birds, and one little baby bird wished to watch the children playing so happily beneath the tree.
He leaned so far over the edge of the nest that he fell to the ground. Now the little brother and sister birdies in the nest begged him to come back, but he just said: “Twee, twee! I can’t get back to my nest for mother has not taught me to fly, you know.”
The little frogs and fishes in the pond were sorry for him; the woodpecker, and the squirrels and the butterflies were sorry, but the children were more sorry than all the others. The frightened birdie nestled against the trunk of the oak tree. A little boy named Leland, caught the bird and put him in his cap, but the tree was too high for a five-year-old boy to climb. A great gray cat came up waving his tail and thinking what a nice bird dinner he would have. A lame boy offered to watch all the afternoon to keep the cat from catching the bird, but he could not climb a tree, for he had only one leg and had to walk with crutches.
A man in a furniture wagon came to the rescue. He stood upon the high seat and threw the birdie up on the branches, but the bird fell again. A man with a string of fish and a pole on his shoulder was stopped by the children. He took the birdie and put him on the top of his tall fishing pole. The bird held on tight with his little feet. Slowly he raised the fishing rod until the bird was at the edge of the nest, then he hopped in where his brother and sister were waiting for him.
How happy the mother and father birds were when they came home and heard all that had happened! How happy the woodpecker, the frogs, the fish, the squirrels and butterflies were! But the little children were happier than all the rest.