ing his violent disposition his heart was in the right place, and I could see by his way of looking at me askant that he would have been glad to forgive and recall me to my home; my mother, too, was constantly gazing upward at me with eyes that were full of tenderness, and now and then she would even venture to address me with a plaintive little chirrup; but my horrible white plumage inspired them, despite their better feelings, with a fear and a repugnance against which I clearly saw there was no remedy.
"I am not a blackbird!" I kept repeating to myself; and, in truth, as I was preening myself one morning and contemplating my form reflected in the water of the gutter, I saw only too clearly, how little resemblance there was between me and the rest of the family. "Kind Heaven!" I said again, "teach me what I am!"
One night when the rain was coming down in bucketfuls and I was getting ready to go to bed, quite worn out with grief and hunger, a bird came and sat down near me, wetter, paler, and more emaciated than I had believed bird could be. He was of something the same color as I, as nearly as I could judge through the torrents of rain that were streaming down on us; he had scarcely sufficient feathers on his body to clothe a sparrow respectably, and yet he was a bigger bird than I. At first I took him to be some poor, needy wanderer, but notwithstanding the storm that pelted pitilessly upon his almost naked poll he maintained a loftiness of demeanor that quite charmed me. I modestly made him a deep bow, to which he replied with a dig of his beak that nearly sent me tumbling off the roof. When he saw me scratch my ear and
