The Song of a Bird

[Julia Kimber]

A man found an eagle's egg and put it in a nest of a
> barnyard hen. The eagle hatched with the brood of
> chicks and grew up with them.
> All his life, the eagle did what the barnyard chicks
> did, thinking he was a barnyard chicken. He scratched
> the earth for worms and insects. He clucked and
> cackled. And he would thrash his wings and fly a few
> feet in the air.
>
> Years passed and the eagle grew very old. One day he
> saw a magnificent bird above him in the cloudless sky.
> It glided in graceful majesty among powerful wind
> currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong golden
> wings.
>
> The old eagle looked up in awe. "Who's that?" he
> asked.
>
> "That's the eagle, the king of the birds," said his
> neighbor. "He belongs to the sky. We belong to the
> earth -- we're chickens." So the eagle lived and died
> a chicken, for that's what he thought he was.
>
> ~