The Storks
A mocking song, a nest on a chimney, and the secret pond where every baby brother and sister waits
Page 1
On the roof of the very last house in a small town, high up on the chimney, there was a stork's nest, and in the nest lived a mother stork and her four young ones. The little ones were still too small to fly. They could only stretch their long necks over the edge of the nest and look down, down, down at the street far below, where the washing hung on lines and the chimneys smoked and children ran about on their way to school. Their father was away that day, fishing for frogs in the marshes outside the town, as he often was, and would come flying home before evening with his supper caught. The four young storks liked to stand close together in the warm nest, dozing in the sun, while their mother kept watch over the whole little town below them.
Page 2
Down in the street below the nest, a group of boys gathered every afternoon, and the worst of them for mischief was a boy named Peter. It was Peter who had made up a rude little song about storks, all about their long legs and their odd way of standing, and he loved to sing it at the top of his voice whenever a stork flew overhead or peered down from a roof. The other boys laughed and sang along with him, though a few of them were not sure it was kind. Peter's own sister, standing nearby with her basket, told him to stop it, that the storks had never done him any harm. But Peter only sang louder, hopping about and making faces up at the nest. High above, the four young storks heard every word of it, and it frightened them and hurt their feelings, though they did not understand why anyone would want to be unkind to them.
Page 3
That evening the four young storks huddled close together in the nest, still upset about the song the boys had sung. "Why do they make fun of us?" one of them asked. "We have never done anything to them." Their mother folded her wings around them and thought for a moment before she answered. She told them that not every child in the town was unkind — some, like the boy's own sister, scolded the others for it — but that there were always a few, like the boy called Peter, who liked to tease and never stopped to think how it felt. Then, to comfort them, she began to tell them something wonderful: a secret about a quiet pond deep in the forest, far from the town, where storks like themselves went to find the very smallest children in the world.
Page 4
Far from the town, deep in a quiet forest, there is a still pond covered with broad green lily leaves and white flowers. This is the pond the mother stork told her children about, and everything she said of it was true, for she had been there herself many times. In among the flowers and the cool water, the very smallest children in the world lie sleeping, waiting for a stork to come and carry them gently away to a father and mother who long for a baby of their own. When a stork finds a family that wants a child, and the children in that family have been good and kind, the stork brings them a living brother or sister wrapped soft and warm. It is a quiet, peaceful place, full of birdsong and stillness, and the storks who visit it always do so gently, as if the whole forest were asleep.
Page 5
Late that evening, the father stork came flying home over the rooftops, a frog still in his long beak for supper, his broad wings catching the last of the light. As soon as he landed on the edge of the nest, the young storks crowded around him, all talking at once about the boys in the street and the cruel song Peter had made up. Their mother told him calmly what had happened, and what she had begun to explain to the children about the pond in the forest. The father listened to all of it without hurrying, the way he always did, turning the matter over in his mind before he said anything at all. He was a steady, fair-minded old stork, and he never liked to decide anything important in haste.
Page 6
The father stork listened to everything and thought for a long while. His wife wanted every boy who had sung the unkind song to be punished the same way when the storks flew south for the winter. But the father said that was not fair — most of the boys had only laughed along without really meaning harm, and only Peter, who had made up the song and sung it loudest, truly deserved to be answered for it. He said that when the time came to leave, kind children in the town, like Peter's own sister, should be given a real baby brother or sister from the pond as a gift, because they deserved it. As for Peter, he should only be given a good fright to remember — nothing worse. The young storks listened to all of this very seriously, and from that evening on, they watched the town below them differently, waiting for the day they would be strong enough to fly.
Page 7
All through the rest of that summer, the four young storks grew bigger and stronger. Their soft grey down turned into proper white and black feathers, their legs grew long and strong, and little by little they learned to use their wings. Their parents took them out to the marshy fields at the edge of town every day to practice, first just hopping and flapping, then running along the ground with their wings spread, and at last lifting a little way into the air before coming back down with a bump. By the end of the summer they could fly as well as any grown stork, soaring high over the fields and circling back to the nest with ease. And all that time, neither they nor their parents forgot what had been decided about Peter and his sister, waiting for the day when the whole family would fly south together.
Page 8
Then one clear autumn morning, storks from all over the countryside began gathering in the sky, circling higher and higher together, for it was time to fly south to the warm land of Egypt for the winter, as storks have always done. The four young storks, now fully grown, rose up with their parents to join the great circling flock, their wings strong and sure after the summer's practice. Before they left for good, though, there was one more thing to do, just as the father had decided weeks before. The whole family swung low together, down over the little town one last time, down toward the street where Peter and his sister lived, to settle the matter of the song once and for all.
Page 9
Low over the rooftops the storks swept, and at the house where Peter's kind sister lived, a stork dropped down gently and left a real, living baby brother, wrapped soft and warm, for the family to find and love. The sister laughed and cried with joy all at once when she saw him. But at Peter's window, the storks had something else in mind. Just as the father had decided, one of the young storks swooped down and let fall, not a baby, but a little dead duckling, wrapped so that for one terrible moment Peter thought the worst and burst into tears, certain he had been given a dead baby brother as punishment for his unkind song. Then he looked again, through his tears, and saw plainly that it was only a duckling after all, and nothing more. He was deeply ashamed of his teasing, and from that day on he never sang an unkind word about a stork again. High above, the storks circled once more over the rooftops before turning south for good.
Page 10
So the storks flew on, up and up, circling once above the little town before turning away south toward the warm land of Egypt, where they would stay all winter long. Down in the street, Peter stood at his window a changed boy, no longer teasing, only watching the birds go with something like respect. His sister stood in her own doorway cradling her new baby brother, rocking him gently as the great flock grew smaller and smaller in the sky. The nest on the chimney stood empty now, waiting for spring, when the storks would come flying back again to the very same rooftop. And that is why, to this day, people in that part of the world say it is the storks who bring the babies — because once, long ago, that is exactly what they did.
About this story
- Audience: kids (ages 6–12)
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