The Storks

TORKS build their nests in chimneys, towers, and steeples. Once a chimney took fire; upon this chimney was a nest in which were four young storks not yet able to fly. Think of the despair of the mother stork, as the smoke enveloped her four little ones and the heat threatened to roast them alive. They were too young for her to carry them away in her beak, that would strangle them, and to throw them out of the nest, would only break their little necks. The mother's instinct taught her what to do; she flew upon the chimney over the nest, flapping her great wings, and in making a current of air in the nest the young could breathe.

But alas! a great quantity of soot, all on fire, began to fall, and now they must certainly be burnt alive. No! the good mother extended her great wings over the nest, and allowed the burning soot to fall upon herself. It had burned one wing nearly away, when the people below came with ladders, and took the nest, and the four little birds, and the good mother. They took good care of her, but she was always infirm. She could fly no more, and for many years she used to go round from house to house and the people would feed her.