December 09, 2006
Saturday

Now, most bedtime stories begin with "Once upon a time", but not this one. This one happened just a few weeks ago. Here is the story and what really happened.

It was springtime and a family of robins were on their way north for the summer. A lot of birds do this. They like to spend the summer in the north where it is cool, and they like to spend the winter in the south where it is warm.

There was the mother robin, and her name was Etta. Then there was the father robin, and his name was Mike. And there was the little baby robin. His name was Daniel.

They had spent the whole day flying and it was getting dark and they needed a place to spend the night. They looked and looked and couldn't find a place to stay. Finally they found a birdhouse that was very old and didn't look very nice. It was a very old house and it needed painting and it just looked terrible. Mike said to Etta, "I know it isn't very pretty, but we must stay here. It is getting very late and we can't find anything else tonight." Etta thought and thought. "You are right Mike, we'll just have to do the best we can with it." Mike went out to find some food for his family and Etta looked around at the ugly birdhouse and said, "I think I may be able to help this little old house!"

Etta went out into the countryside and found a red berry. She took it back to the birdhouse. She took the juice from the red berry and used it to paint the perch. Then she went back into the woods and found a blackberry. She used that juice to paint the walls of the birdhouse.

Just then all of the other birds came over to see what she was doing with all those berries. They laughed at Etta! "You can never make that house look pretty," they all said. Then the other birds flew away to their beautiful homes. They had really hurt Etta's feelings. Poor Etta!

But she knew that she could make that house pretty! She found some green berries and painted the steps to the house a bright green. And then she found some blueberries. Oh, how pretty they were! She painted the rest of the house with that pretty blue juice.

Mike came back with some food for his family and saw the house. He could not believe how pretty Etta had made that ugly old house! Daniel thought it was the most beautiful house that he had ever seen!

The other birds came by after they had heard what Etta had done to the house. "It is beautiful," they thought.

"I want it," a bluejay said.
"No, I want it," said the redbird.
"NO, I want it," said the blackbird.

Well, Etta and her family kept the old birdhouse for themselves. After everyone else laughed at it, Etta had made it into a beautiful home. And she put her family's name on it so next year when they came by here again on their way north, they would have a beautiful house waiting for them.

Now, most bedtime stories end with, "And they lived happily ever after!" It seems like this one should end that way, too.

And they lived happily ever after!

SitNews ©2006
Stories In The News
Ketchikan, Alaska