[Illustration]





THE LANGUAGE OF THE BIRDS


[Illustration] Somewhere in a town in holy Russia, there lived a rich
merchant with his wife. He had an only son, a dear, bright, and brave
boy called Ivan. One lovely day Ivan sat at the dinner table with
his parents. Near the window in the same room hung a cage, and a
nightingale, a sweet-voiced, gray bird, was imprisoned within. The
sweet nightingale began to sing its wonderful song with trills and
high silvery tones. The merchant listened and listened to the song and
said:

"How I wish I could understand the meaning of the different songs of
all the birds! I would give half my wealth to the man, if only there
were such a man, who could make plain to me all the different songs of
the different birds."

Ivan took notice of these words and no matter where he went, no matter
where he was, no matter what he did, he always thought of how he could
learn the language of the birds.

[Illustration: _Ivan learns the language of the birds_]

Some time after this the merchant's son happened to be hunting in a