All his brothers and sisters put up their heads and giggled, as the young do
when one of their number misbehaves.

"Don't make that noise!" said his mother; "it's not decent!"

"It's low!" said the father-bird.

The littlest young Jackdaw was overwhelmed with astonishment. When he tried to
explain, his unseemly melodies led to his immediate expulsion from the family
circle. Such noises, he was told, could only be made in private; when he had
quite got over them he might come back,--but not until.

He never got over them; so he never came back. For a few days he hid himself
in different trees of the garden, and sang the praises of sorrow; but his
family, though they comprehended him not, recognised his note, and came
searching him with beak and claw, and drove him out so as not to have him near
them committing such scandalous noises to the ears of the public.

"He lies in his throat!" said the old Jackdaw. "Everything he says he garbles.
If he is our son he must have been hatched on the wrong side of the nest!"

After that, wherever he went, all the birds jeered at and persecuted him. Even
the nightingales would not listen to his brotherly voice. They made fun of his
black coat, and called him a Nonconformist without a conscience. "All this has
come about," thought he, "because God never meant anything beautiful to come
true."

One day a man who saw him and heard him singing, caught him, and took him
round the world in a cage for show. The value of him was discovered. Great
crowds came to see the little Jackdaw, and to hear him sing. He was described