In the bright blue ocean, where the morning sun shimmered and danced upon the waves, lived a small fish named Freddy whose one desire was to fly. He gazed longingly to the great bird flying high above him and sighed, “Oh, to be a bird! Just think what fun it would be to be able to fly round and round, looking down into the water! Ah me! I should like to be a bird!”
Freddy could not understand it. He felt sure that swimming with those beautiful, large, glimmering wings would give him the same joy that flying gave to the birds. He had played about on the surface of the water until it was very full of fish and the angle of his fins was quite different. Every day seemed to increase his desire. He would be up very early, waiting and watching for his friend the swan-bird to fly past. But each time he felt more disappointed.
“You can never tell,” thought he, “but what tomorrow may do. The spouts on my wings are enough to carry me up into the air, and I do so long to try it.” So day after day he waited for his friend the swan-bird, but when she passed over him it was a great while between the strokes of her wings.
“Make haste,” he thought. “Perhaps after a while I too may learn to fly.” But Freddy forgot that his wings were quite different from hers, and that she had to go just as fast to keep herself up in the air as his little tail could go through the water. At length the Lord of the Marsh came sailing by. Freddy called out, as she passed over him, “Oh swan-bird! I do so want to be a bird and fly!”
“But you are a fish,” replied the swan-bird.
“Oh no! Oh no! Indeed I am a bird,” said Freddy, jumping half out of the water.
“You are a fish, I assure you,” said the swan-bird, who had suddenly perceived the spouts on Freddy’s body.
“Nonsense!” said Freddy, “Look at my wings; I would jump right up to you; but I think I have hurt myself with jumping so often.”
At this moment up came a grampus who lived just over Freddy. He said in his gruff voice, “It is of no use to dispute about the matter. Get up when you like, and fly to the himalays as soon as you please; but I assure you that you are still nothing but a fish.”
The two swan-birds then laughed and sailed off. Freddy sank down and felt sorry that he had ever spoken to either of them about his wings; still, he really did think he could fly if he might only try.
He was standing at his tail’s end one fine day waiting for step-father to come along, when up jumped grampus.
“You have no wings: don’t let them tell you, boy, that you are a bird. All your relatives and friends have gills now to breathe with. I should know—they cried out as I nearly swallowed one just now. Why, they have only just managed to escape being upside down! Your relatives the otter said so.”
“I am an air-breathing family-monster,” said Freddy.
“You have at least gills to breathe with; why should you wish to get wings? Just look up into the sky from under the waves in the bright, blue sea.”
“Oh, to fly, to fly!” sighed Freddy. “I must try!”
Next morning there was a terrible storm. He tried to keep his head above the water, but it ebbed and flowed faster than he could swim. “Oh dear, dear me; if only step-father would fly by!” But precisely then his father came home, and it was a long time before he was able to raise them up again. “On solid ground! on solid ground!” said Freddy. To be sure he had no wings, but then his body, or bird-feathers, were so smooth and flat.
But it was all in vain; he sank down, threw himself on the pebbles near the shore, and so found it difficult to get his breath.
“Fly, fly, fly! Let me first sing you a song.”
Freddy thought it was the brambles that held his wings from turning up above him. “I must try,” said he; but it was of no use.
“I swore,” said grampus, “to swallow the first fish I met in mid-ocean, and he leaps on shore. If step-father would but sing one little song!”
“Let me get to a grassy bank down by the river!” drank little flounder, who was sailing past, swimming as he did so just above the water. “It may be of use, however, I feel floundered!”
He was a nice fish, to be sure, but then his family-feathers were not so smooth and flat as Freddy’s; still they did not sink any the less, which he well knew.
So Freddy died; but he felt perfectly sure that he had been a bird!
There are many who are sure they’re goats, horses, or the shepherd. But it is a family-monster; and that is the same sort of person!