My Father's Favorite Story

Humphrey Stevenson

This was my father’s favorite story and he told it often when I a little boy. At least it was one you could share in mixed company; he was a sailor after all. I thought you might enjoy the story and its message.

There was a very young bird in a nest high in an oak tree at in a small patch of woods at the edge of a pasture. The sun was shining bright on a bitterly cold morning with a biting wind blowing from the north. But the little bird was safe and warm in the nest while his mother was gone looking for food for him. The little bird was curious and poked his head above the edge of the nest and watched as the older birds jumped out of their nests and took off in glorious flight. The little bird wanted to fly so badly. He had been jumping around the nest lately and he was growing and getting stronger by the day, but was still too young to fly. The older birds made it look so easy and it looked like so much fun.

The little bird decided that he had waited just about long enough. So, he struggled his way up onto the edge of the nest, stood arrow straight, flapped his wings as hard as he could, leaped off the nest and … plummeted, like a rock, to the ground. Surprisingly, the little bird was unhurt, just very cold. He then started screaming in hopes that his mother would hear and come and put him back in the nest. But his mother had journeyed too far to hear him.

However, a cow grazing nearby did hear the little bird and came over to investigate. She found the little bird shivering on the ground and surmised what had happened. She looked up and saw that the nest was far too high for her to reach. But she knew that the little bird would freeze to death if she didn’t do something. So she turned around, carefully positioned herself and gently plopped a big, steaming pile of manure right on the little bird. When she turn around to inspect her handiwork, she found that while the little bird may not smell too good, he would be safe and warm until his mother returned. She then went to rejoin the rest of the heard which had moved to the far end of the pasture.

Once the little bird found that he could not free himself from his smelly cocoon, he began to scream even louder for his mother. Only this time it wasn’t his mother or a benevolent cow, but a fox, that that heard his protests. The fox found the little bird, pulled him from the manure pile, pick every bit of the manure from him and … ate him in one bite.

The moral of the story is; 1) those who dump crap on you aren’t always trying to hurt you, 2) those who clean crap off of you aren’t always trying to help you and 3) when you’re up to your neck in crap, keep your mouth closed.