Sam and the Finches

There was once a young woman, who, after working in the fields with her father, went to a secret thicket and talked with the birds who perched on the limbs. The young woman was a beautiful dark haired creature, with indescribable eyes and a colorful round face. There wasn’t a better worker in all of England, not a man or woman who labored as tirelessly and happily as she did. She was the pride and tenderness of her father’s heart and the pinnacle of admiration among her neighbors and friends.

The thicket she visited was no ordinary place; hardly any place that she visited could bear to be ordinary. The birds she spoke to, whether according to her imagination or not, actually talked back to her and gathered all around her to listen to her many stories.

“Tell us about the farmer who rescued his puppy from the river, Sam!” they all peeped. The girl’s name was Samantha, but everyone called her Sam.

“No, no, I’ve got a better one than that old tale,” Sam would reply, and then she’d tell them an even better story than before. And afterward she and the birds would talk about the high skies and how they looked and felt on those long summer days.

“Sometimes when I work,” said Sam to a group of yellow finches, “I look up and see a big storm cloud in the distance, and I say to myself, ‘Why am I not up there, feeling the wind and rain? That’s where I’m sure I belong, up there with you.”

“We never venture into the storms, dear Sam!” said the finches. “We hide in our trees and wait until it passes.”

“I should like to believe that the storm only looks dangerous,” Sam replied dreamily. “Once you get above it, why, it looks like a plain old sheet of grey paper. Don’t you ever try to get above the storm instead of hiding from it?” The finches looked at one another and peeped among themselves that they had never quite thought of it in such a way. They decided that Sam was a perfectly marvelous philosopher and said plainly, “We love that idea! We should like to try it at once!”

“I suppose you’ll have to wait for a storm then,” laughed Sam. “You are indeed wonderful birds. You love new prospects, don’t you?” The finches all nodded and gave chirps of laughter and hopped about in excitement because they all loved Sam so much. As they were all smiling and having a good time, however, Sam happened to glance over them and spotted a yellow finch perched by itself on the high branch of a peach tree. The finch looked very sad and its feathers were dirty and disorganized. Its little beak opened and closed and gave mournful coos. Sam rose to her feet and said, “Do you know that finch up there, dear ones?” The company of finches turned in unison and speculated the lonely bird.

“It’s only John Mark,” one of them mentioned. “He’s always sad about something.”

“I shall go speak to him at once,” said Sam resolutely, and she crossed the grassy clearing til she was underneath the peach tree and within an arm’s length of the lonesome John Mark. The other finches fluttered up to various spots in the trees and watched closely.

John Mark the Finch looked at Sam with two black beady eyes but quickly looked away again with a shiver.

“Now, now,” said Sam, extending a pretty white finger. “What’s the matter with you?”

John Mark didn’t turn to her but shamefully replied, “O lovely Sam! You work in the fields all day long and give beauty to everyone you meet! What am I? Just a dirty little bird, that’s all. I want to listen to your wonderful talk, but I was afraid you wouldn’t like my untidy wings!”

“He is pretty dirty, Sam!” called one of the finches. But Sam turned to it sharply and said, “You hold your tongue, Jackelyn!”

She turned back to John Mark and once again offered him her finger. “What’s all this nonsense about untidy wings?” she demanded as John Mark sheepishly hopped on her finger, his little head still bowed. Sam used her other hand to pat down John Mark’s wings and blew over him so the dust was swept away.

“There,” she said. “That’s so you might feel better. Don’t you think I get dirty, working all day in the soil, my hands plunged into the ground so I might find the deep and stubborn potato roots? And don’t you think the other finches don’t get dirty when they  take a secret mud bath?”

“Outrage!” cried the finches. “We do no such thing!”

“Don’t deny it,” Sam said gently. “Every finch is a vain finch, but only the sensible ones show up dirty in public so that someone might show them the way to wash it off properly.” She set John Mark on the ground and said, “We are all dirty, little finch, at one point in the day. That doesn’t make you less than your friends. You’ve shown you’re clean by realizing you are dirty. Don’t you understand?”

“I suppose so, Miss Samantha. Will you tell us a story now?”

“Indeed I shall!” she laughed. “Come along, finches! I’m going to tell you a story about the birdkeeper and how he lost his prize nuthatch, and how he traveled the world to find her again.”