Page:Chinese Fables and Folk Stories.djvu/152

148 "Did you know that the eagle likes the rice birds?" And the other boy replied, "No, she does not, for I have seen her drive them away."

But the one named Jeung-Po said, "Not only can I make an eagle like a rice bird, but I can make them change natures and live with each other."

"You can not do that," answered Hui-Yin.

"Will you give me a piece of silver if I can make the eagle like the rice birds and take them as friends?"

And Hui-Yin said, "Yes, I will give you a piece of silver if you do that, but I know you can not." And so they clapped hands.

So Jeung-Po went his way hunting, hunting many birds, until finally he found a rice bird's nest with five eggs in it. He took three of the eggs and put them in the mother eagle's nest and then he took the three eggs from the eagle's nest to the nest of the rice bird.

In twenty-five days the eagle's nest had three baby birds in it and Jeung-Po was glad. One day he heard the mother eagle saying to her three babies:

"I do not know why your feathers are not as mine, and your voices are so different and you are such very little things. I will go and ask my oldest son to come