tain, so that he could
look down on all below and see what was going on. Every day he went down
to the Green Forest and sat on the tallest tree while he listened to the
complaints of the other birds and settled their disputes, and none
questioned his decisions. Now after a while, this little part of the
earth where the animals and the birds first lived became overcrowded. It
became harder and harder to get enough to eat. Quarrels became more
frequent, until King Eagle had little time for anything but
straightening out these troubles and trying to keep peace.

"Old Mother Nature had been away a long time trying to make other parts
of the world fit to live in. No one knew when she was coming back or
just where she was. King Eagle, sitting on the edge of the cliff on the
mountain, thought it all over. Old Mother Nature ought to know how
things were. He would send a messenger to try to find her. So the next
day he called all the birds together and asked who would go out into the
unknown Great World to look for Old Mother Nature and take a message to
her.

"No one offered. This one had a family to look after. That one was not
feeling well. Another had a pain in his wings. One and all they had an
excuse until Hummer, the tiniest of all the birds, was reached. He
darted into the air before King Eagle. 'I'll go,' said he.

"All the others laughed. The very idea of such a tiny fellow going out
to dare the dangers of the unknown Great World seemed to them so absurd
that they just had to laugh. But King Eagle didn't laugh. He thanked
Hummer and told him that his heart was as big as his body was small,
but that he would not send him out into the Great World, for he would go
himself. He had been but trying out his subjects, and he had found but
one who was worthy, and that one was the smallest of them all. Then King
Eagle said things that made all the other birds hang their heads for
shame and want to sneak out of sight.

"After that, he told them that no king who was worthy to be king would
ask his subjects to do what he would not do himself, and that where
there was danger to be faced or something hard to do, it was the king's
place to do it, so he himself was going out into the unknown Great World
to find Mother Nature and see what could be done to make things better
and happier for them. Then he spread his great wings and sailed away,
every inch a king. They watched him until he was a speck in the sky,
and finally he disappe