Everyone knows that swallows are leaving in the winter for warm climates and do not return until spring.
To make this long journey, the swallows mothers gather their young around them. But a poor little swallow fall from the nest one windy day, limped a little and could not fly away with her siblings.
She stood sadly at the edge of the roof, where she saw her family move away, and she would certainly die of hunger, cold and sorrow, whether the children of the house had collected.
They put the little swallow in a cage, next to the stove; they nourished it with flies and worms, so that the swallow was very healthy and not limping at all to the return of spring.
And when the swallow parents returned from the hot countries, the children opened the cage. The swallow recognized his mother and, with shouts of joy, she threw herself into his wings.
(Translated and adapted from ABC – Petits Contes, by Jules Lemaître)
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