welcome to paul edmund norman's the gateway

Once upon a time, far atop a mountain, a baby wren hatched from her mother’s egg. The mother wren was very happy for her little one, and the baby wren was very happy for her mother.

But no sooner had her mother given the little wren a name to be called by, than a terrible storm arose. The mother wren covered her little one with her body and outstretched wings, and the little wren clung to the nest for dear life. But the storm raged so fearfully that it blew the mother wren away. It blew her out of the nest and down the mountainside, over the tops of the trees a and down to the torrent in the valley below, where she was swept away by the racing current. And the little wren clung to the nest for dear life, all by herself.

When the sunshine had returned, the little wren lifted her head and looked about. She ruffled her wet fuzz in the bright breeze, and dried. Then she looked for her mother and cried for her, but her mother was nowhere to be seen.

So the little wren set out in search of her mother. The day was bright, and the air was dry and clear and cool, so that when the little wren hopped up over the edge of the nest and spread her wings she only had to wave them once or twice to float out over the treetops down the mountain to the valley below. The morning sparkled with sunlight, and the little wren’s heart was full of hope.

Away she glided, down along the treetops, down along the torrent, out and across the fields and little hills and back again, farther and farther down the valley where her mother had gone.

But at last the little wren grew weary, for she had flown very far. And she felt lonely, as her mother was still lost and night was coming. So she alighted in a wood at the foot of a great oak tree, and rested on the brown leaves at its foot.

Now night fell, and it grew very chill. The little wren shivered with cold, and huddled herself together under her feathers, thinking of the warm sunshine. She lay as still as still could be, as the shadows of great hawks floated through the woods, crisscrossing her resting place, and she could hear foxes creeping below. At last it grew so cold that she was almost frozen. And she did not know what to do or where to go. She was very frightened, but she hoped and hoped, and slipped under the brown leaves to wait for morning. There she trembled and wept until she fell asleep.

Now the great oak tree, at whose foot the little wren was sleeping, felt sorrow and love for her. So she took counsel of her friend the wind, who blew nightly in her branches. “Who will help me care for the little wren?” she asked.

“Who?” breathed the wind. “Who? I!” And the wind blew to the night, asking her, “Who will help us care for the little wren?”

“I,” whispered the night, and drew her dark mantle over the little wren, so that no hawk could glimpse the place where she lay sleeping.

And the night went out to sea, and asked the sea, “Who will help us care for the little wren?”

“I,” boomed the sea, and thundered against the shore so mightily that the foxes of the wood crept frightened to their lairs.

“I,” sang the sky, and all the stars of heaven shone kindly and watchfully on the place where the little wren lay sleeping.

And she slept peacefully all the night through. And the tree, and the wind, and the sea, and the sky kept her safe, hour by hour, until morning should come.

When morning came, the little wren, so frightened and so lonely, awoke and peeped out from under her cover of brown leaves. As she did she chanced to spy a little child walking along the path that wound past the great oak tree. Suddenly she felt even more hope than before, and fluttered to the child’s feet. The child bent down and lifted her up in her hands. The baby wren was soft and warm, and her heart was beating very fast.

The little wren asked the child her name, and the child replied, “Katharine.” Then the little wren looked up at her and said, “Katharine, my mother has been taken by the wind. Will you be my mother?”

Katharine carried the little wren home with her and cared for her, and carried her everywhere she went. She always held her gently and played with her happily. All Katharine’s friends thought it most wonderful that Katharine should be the little wren’s mother.

Then one day the little wren’s mother came flying to Katharine’s house! She was alive, and had scoured hill and dale, stream and wood for her little child.

Now the little wren had two mothers, her first, from whose egg she had hatched in her nest, and Katharine! And all three lived together in Katharine’s house.

Now, as it chanced–wondrous thing!--Katharine was the very name the little wren’s mother had given her when first she had hatched, far away on the mountain top. So Katharine and the little wren felt almost like twins, and loved each other very much. They loved the little wren’s mother, too, just as she loved them-and they all lived happily ever after.