Page:Fairy Tales for Worker's Children.djvu/39

 Even while he was thinking this he spread out his little wings and flew toward the ocean.

In the harbor many silvery-white Seagulls flew about, crying with shill voices, "A storm is coming! A storm is coming!"

"Which ship is going north?" he asked hastily.

"None," answered a Seagull; but this was not true, they were disagreeable birds and wanted to frighten the Sparrow.

But he believed them. "Then I must fly over the ocean," thought he, fearfully. "I must do it, for on me depends the life or death of my Sparrow brothers. I must make good."

Sadly he looked back once more on the wonderland; then flew out on the great waters.

Wild waves dashed up, the storm howled and rain fell. In a few hours, the Sparrow was so tired that he could no longer fly high. The billows made his feathers wet, they were heavy with the



water and drew him deeper and deeper down. A monstrous wave reached out for him with white arms and the Sparrow fell into the ocean and was swallowed by the waves. 33