Once upon a time, while traveling from one place to another, a mother and her young son came upon poultry farm. The boy was very curious and pressed his face into the wire fence to get a closer look at the hundreds of chickens pecking at the ground looking for food.
“Mama, there is a very odd chicken in this cage. He’s not like the other ones at all. Do you see the one I’m talking about?”
As the mother looked at the bird her son was pointing to, a dusty man in dirty clothing walked up to them.
“What are you up to? I don’t like people hanging around my chickens,” he grumbled.
“Just looking, sir. But would mind telling me about that bird in the corner there? He is an odd bird and in fact, I was thinking he might be a young eagle.”
“Nonsense,” the man replied. “I’ve had him since barely a hatching. Listen boy, when something acts like a chicken and eats like a chicken, he is a chicken.”
“Do you mind if we get a closer look for ourselves?” the boy asked.
“Do what you pleased,” he answered.
The mother and her son bent in half to fit through the half-built door. She went on her knees and scooped up the young bird.”
“We think you’re an eagle, not a chicken. You can fly free!”
She held the bird above her head and tossed him in the air. The bird flipped its wings once or twice but fell flat on its beak as it collapsed to the ground, and began to scratch in the dirt for its feed. The farmer watching from afar, laughed aloud. “I told you that’s a chicken, just an ordinary chicken. You ‘re both wasting your time and mine!”
As the man turned his back on them to walk away, the boy shouted, “Excuse me sir, but would you sell this bird to us? Since he’s just an ordinary chicken, I’ m sure you wouldn’t miss him.”
“Fine with me. Ten dollars is my price. Take it or leave it.”
The mother knew the price was outrageous, but her son’s eyes were pleading so she gave the old man the money.
The boy scooped the eagle to his chest, ran out of the cage, and began walking and talking to the bird. His words were words of faith that the bird would eventually know its true nature.
After the boy and his mother spent a few days with the bird, the boy suddenly ran down a dusty road. His mother followed him to the top of a small hill.
“What are you doing here, son?”
The boy did not answer. Instead he lifted the young bird as high as his arms would stretch and said as he had many times before, “You have the heart of an eagle. You are meant to fly and be free. Spread your wings and go, eagle, fly!”
A gentle current of air ruffled the feathers of that bird. The mother held her breath as her son tossed it high into the wind. The creature stretched out its wings and looked down on the mother and her sin. He then began to glide smoothly in a wide circle high above the two of them, above the farm, above the valley.
The mother and her son never saw the eagle again. They never discovered where it decided to go. They only knew it would never return to life of a chicken ever again.
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