Frightened and trembling, I cast myself at my father’s feet. “O my father!” I said, “if I whistle out of tune, and am clothed in white, do not punish my poor mother. Is it her fault that nature has not tuned my ear like yours? Is it her fault that I have not your yellow beak and glossy black coat, which recall a sleek parson swallowing an omelette? If Heaven has made me a monster, and if some one must bear the punishment, let me be the only sufferer.” “That is not the question,” said my father. “Who taught you to whistle against rule?” “Alas! sir,” I said humbly, “I whistled as best I could, because my breast was full of sunshine and stomach full of grubs.” {241} [Illustration] “Such whistling was never known in my family,” he replied. “For untold centuries we have whistled, from father to son, the notes alone by which we are known. Our morning and evening warblings have {242} been the pride of the world since the dawn that awoke us to the joys of paradise. My voice alone is the delight of a gentleman on the first floor and of a poor girl in the attic of yonder house. They open their windows to listen to me. Is it not enough to have your whitened clown-at-a-fair coat constantly before my eyes? Were I not the most pacific of parents, I should have you plucked and toasted on the poor girl’s spit.” “Well,” I cried, disgusted with my father’s injustice, “be it so, I will leave you—deliver you from the sight of this white tail you are constantly pulling. As my mother lays three times a year, you may yet have numerous black children to console your old age. I will seek a hiding-place for my misery; perchance some shady spout which shall afford flies or spiders to sustain my sad life. Adieu!” “Please yourself,” replied my father, who seemed to enjoy the prospect of losing me; “you are no son of mine—in fact, you are no Blackbird.” “And who may I be, pray?” “Impossible to say; but you are no Blackbird.” After these memorable words, my unnatural parent with slow steps left me, and my poor mother limped into a bush to weep. As for myself, I flew to the spout of a neighbouring house. II. My father was heartless enough to leave me in this mortifying situation for some days. In spite of his violence he was naturally kind-hearted, and had he not been prevented by his pride, he would have come to comfort me. I saw that he would fain forgive and forget, while my mother’s eyes hardly left me for an instant. For all that, they could not get over my abnormally white plumage, and bring themselves to own me as a member of the family. “It is quite evident I am not a Blackbird,” I repeated to myself, and my image, reflected in a pool of water in the spout, confirmed this belief.