Little swallow - short story

Ranger Rick, Nov, 1994 by Diana Conway

Little Swallow couldn't what Ying Di was doing. "Don't throw that!" she cried out. "You'll smash the sparrow's eggs!"

"Village Leader Wang told us to knock down all the nests," said Ying Di. He hurled another stone upward with all his strength. The mother sparrow escaped into the air as her nest and eggs crashed down.

Little Swallow ran inside her little one-room schoolhouse. "It's true," Teacher Zhou (JOE) told her. "Our beloved Chairman Mao [rhymes with now! says we must get rid of sparrows in China." Little Swallow looked up at the smiling photograph of her country's leader that hung on the classroom wall.

She fingered her long, black braids in the nervous way that grown-ups didn't like. Little Swallow had been named after a bird. Now people wanted to get rid of birds in China. Surely there was some mistake.

"The sparrows are fattening themselves on rice that's needed to feed our people," Teacher Zhou told the class. "You must all help out in the new anti-bird campaign.

"Bring noisemakers to the rice fields tomorrow so we can frighten the birds," the teacher said. "That way they'll be too scared to land. Then they'll get too tired to fly. When they fall to the ground, we can kill them. We'll do this every Sunday during spring until we are free of the feathered pests."

When Teacher Zhou dismissed the class, Little Swallow raced over the packed earth trail. She slipped past her front gate and into the courtyard of her home. Her father's father was sitting in his chair by the patch of flowers.

Little Swallow knelt down beside her grand-father. "Ye Ye," she panted. "Teacher says we must kill the sparrows."

"Ah yes, Little Swallow," the old man nodded. "I've heard of this new campaign." He ran his bony fingers through the gray hairs of his beard. "This is wrong. They'll see. Nothing good will come of it."

As she did every afternoon, Little Swallow helped her grandfather tend to his singing birds. Three delicate bamboo cages hung from the porch beams. Inside the cages were a siskin, a pair of Peking robins, and a laughing thrush called "painted eyebrow" in Chinese.

After the birds were fed and watered, Little Swallow and her grandfather walked hand in hand to the river bank. They sat on the stone steps and listened to the blackbirds sing the sun to rest. "Is there nothing we can do to save the birds, Ye Ye?" Little Swallow asked.

The old man shook his head sadly. Together, they went home for a meal of rice.

Morning came. Little Swallow huddled under her red quilt and listened to the sparrows waking each other in the courtyard trees. Sunday was the day to help Ye Ye carry his bamboo cages to the village square. There, the old men gathered to show off their singing birds. Little Swallow sat up. She slipped her feet into her red cloth sandals embroidered with rainbow peacocks.

From outside the family's courtyard walls, Little Swallow could hear pots banging, people yelling, firecrackers exploding. Then she remembered. Today the bird-killing campaign began. She shivered as she pulled on her warm cotton pants and jacket. Then she found Father's father sitting at the table with his head in his hands.

Little Swallow fingered-her braids. "I won't help kill birds," she said stubbornly:

They walked together to the edge of the fields. There they watched the villagers making noise. Flocks of starlings and sparrows hovered in the air, afraid to land. When the birds tried to rest in willow trees, children threw stones to force them up-into the air again.

Hours later, the ground was littered with tired, feathered bodies. Little Swallow picked one up and watched it gasping for air. "Ye Ye, what about you and all the old men who raise songbirds - couldn't you save the lives of just a few of these wild birds?"

I will ask if it's allowed," he said hopefully.

Village Leader Wang snorted. "So the old men want to throw away grain on useless birds," he said with a sneer. "Well, as long as you keep them caged, I guess Chairman Mao won't mind."

Little Swallow and her grandfather gathered a basket of weary birds and gave them to the pet bird, owners.

Every Sunday for a month, the villagers frightened and killed the birds. After that, the air seemed eerily quiet. Only a few caged birds sang in shady courtyards.

Then came the mosquitoes, more than anyone could ever remember. They tormented the villagers at work and in bed. And in summer, a huge swarm of grasshoppers flew into the fields and gobbled the crops.

"There are no birds left to eat the pests," said Father's father. "We're losing more rice to grasshoppers than we ever lost to sparrows."

In all of China where the birds had been killed, people groaned with hunger. Insects had eaten most of their crops.

Two years later, in the spring, Teacher Zhou said there would be no new campaign against birds. "Chairman Mao wants his young friends to take special care of any nests they find. We must help the birds return to our village and farms."

Little Swallow fingered her braids. She knew a way to hurry the birds back. "Ye Ye!" she shouted to her grandfather after school that day. "Let's tell the old men to free the birds now."