HIS FIRST FLIGHT
HIS FIRST FLIGHT : The young seagull was alone on his ledge. His two brothers and his sister had already flown away the day before. He had been afraid to fly with them. When he had run forward to the brink of the ledge he became afraid. The great expanse of the sea stretch down beneath, and it was miles down. He felt certain that his wings would never support hime. So he bent his head and ran away back to the little Shirley. But for the life of him he could not move
That was twenty-four hours ago. Since then nobody had come near him. The day before, he had watched his parents flying about whit his brother and sister. They were teaching them the art of flight and how to dive for fish. He had seen his elder brother catch his first herring, while his parents circled around proudly.
The sun was now ascending the sky, blazing warmly on his ladge that faced the South he felt the heat because he had not eaten since the previous nightfall. Now there was not a single scrap of food left in the straw nest. His little grey body trotted back and forth on the ledge. He was trying to find some means of reaching his parents without having to fly. But on each side of him the ledge ended in a sheer I’m
with tthe sea beneath. He could surely reach them without flying if he could only move northward alone the cliff. But then on what could he walk? There was no ledge, and he was not fly.
He stepped slowly out to the brink of the ledge. He stood on one leg with the other leg hidden under his wing. Closing one eye and then the other, he pretended to be falling asleep. Still his parents took no notice of him. He saw his two brothers and sisters lying on the plateau. They were dozing, with their heads sunk into their wings. His father was preening his feathers on his white back. Only his mother was looking at him. She was standing on a little high hump on the plateau, eating a place of fish. The sight of the food maddened him.
What is the theme of the story of “His first flight”?
with a loud scream he fell outwards and downward into space then terror seized him and his heart stood still. But it only lasted a moment. The next month he felt and his wings spread outwards. The wind runner against his breast feathers, then under the stomach and against his wings. He could feel the tips of his wings cutting downward and outward. He uttered a joyous scream and flapped them again. He soared higher. His mother flew past him. Her wings making a loud noise. He answers her with another sceam. Then his father flew over him, screaming. Then he saw his two brothers and his sister flying around him.
He saw a vast green sea beneath him, and he turned his beak sideway and crowed amused. His parents and his brother and sister had landed on this green floor in front of him. They were beckoning to hime, calling shrilly. He dropped his legs of his feet sank into the sea, and then his belly touched it and he sank no further. He was floating on it. And around him his family was screaming, praising him. He had made his first flight.
“Ge, ga, ga,” He crid, begging her to bring him some food. “Gaw-oll-ah.” She screamed back. He kept calling., and after a minite or so., he uttered a joyful scream. His mother had picked up a piece of fish and was flying across to him with it. But when she was just opposite to him., she halted, her wings motionless. The piece of fish in her back was almost within reach of his beak. He waited a moment in suprise, wondering why she did not come nearer. And then, maddened by hunger, he dived at the fish.