祥忠

long，long ago，as the birds flew over the world，they saw that men had a beautiful thing. It was a bright and burning thing. Men cooked their food and kept themselves warm with it. The birds thought life would be better if they could have this thing，too. So they decided to send a messenger（信使）to humans to ask for little piece of it. They thought Chicken was a good one to spend because he was a good talker. So Chicken went.

He flew far over the forest until he came to the towns of men. He went into a town and saw the burning thing. He learned that it was called “Fire”. He did not ask for a piece of it to take back to the birds because there was so much food lying around men？蒺s houses that he started eating and forgot what he had come for.

Men liked Chicken because he crowed（啼叫） very early in the morning and woke them up. They let him run in and out of their houses. They threw him food. So Chicken stayed with humans. He never went back to the birds. He even forgot how to fly.

The very day that Odd Duck hatched （孵化）out of his egg，he found out that no one liked him.“He is too big and too different from the rest of us，”the other ducks said.

“He could be a chick. Chicks don？蒺t like the water. Put him in the pond to see if he likes it，” said one of the ducks. Odd Duck？蒺s mother let him and her other children to the bank of the pond. One after another the little ducks jumped into the water. Last of all came Odd Duck. He jumped into too，and swam just as fast as the others. “Odd Duck swam very well，” said his mother，“He can？蒺t be a chick. ”