Page:Fairy Tales for Worker's Children.djvu/29

 people? To travel, to see the world, to spend the winter in warm countries—that is not for common people."

An old blackbird minister, black-frocked and solemn, delivered a sermon to him from a branch. "We must obey God's commandments. God has ordained that Sparrows must spend the winter in the north."

"If God has decreed that all our people shall freeze and starve and that only the aristocrats, the Capitalists, like the Swallows and Starlings, shall fly away to the warm places, I don't want to know anything about him!" cried the Sparrow and his feathers bristled up in anger.

The old blackbird minister primped his shining feathers with his bill and growled senselessly. But the Sparrow was sad. "How cruel the birds are to one another," he thot to himself. "I want to do something that will help all and am just laughed at. Can't anybody understand me?"

"Hark, hark!" called a soft voice from a great height, and a young Lark shot downward as swift as lightning to the side of the sad Sparrow. "I understand you. Everybody jeers at me too, because I don't fly close to the earth like they do, but always seek to fly higher and higher, into the blue sky. Do not be downcast, beloved brother, you will reach your goal."

The young Lark flew quite close to the Sparrow, looked at him and said, "Fly a little for me, brother, so I can see how strong your wings are."

The Sparrow flew up, hovering over the Lark.

As he returned she looked at him sadly and said earnestly, "Your wings cannot carry you over the great ocean, my poor friend. But you must not give up on account of that, you must do as men do, who cannot fly and yet travel all over the world. They 23