Snoutie and His Friends

“You must learn to think globuslly, that is, I mean, ga-ga-ga-globally,” Goose once honked importantly.

“Uncle Goose, what does glo-o-o-bally mean?” asked a confused Young Ostrich, stretching out the word.

“It means the way in which you should think; it means the breadth of your views and the span of your creative plans. You must look at the world from the great height of your thoughts in flight,” explained Goose. Then he thrust out his chest, pleased with himself and his explanations.

Goose’s young charge fell to thinking. Or, rather, to coming up with an idea. The only thing Young Ostrich remembered out of all the explanations his Globally Thinking Tutor had just given was something about the height of flight and wingspan. Of course, Goose had not actually said anything of the sort and had meant something else entirely, but Young Ostrich judged it in his own way. He decided that he absolutely must learn how to fly. And not just how to fly, but how to fly higher than anyone else.

“That is exactly how I will be able to look at the world from the great heights of my flight,” he dreamed.

And so Young Ostrich set about trying to reach the goal of his existence: he started to learn how to fly. Every day he ran around the meadow near Goose’s house with his neck stuck w-a-a-a-y out, trying to take flight. He even scampered up a tall hill nearby and then ran down it as fast as he could, neck out and tiny wings spread. But none of these efforts led to any results: Young Ostrich could not take off. On the other hand, though, his long legs did get stronger and stronger.

And here Young Ostrich, who was about to get very upset, had an idea that he believed to be an excellent one. He decided to blow up lots of balloons, tie them all together tightly, and fly off with them as soon as the wind picked up and it looked like good flying weather. This is how he came up with his Flight Plan, the details of which he did not share with Goose, since Goose was very busy during the day and loved to talk more than listen in the evening.

One morning Goose told Young Ostrich that that day was a Very Busy Mail Day, that he had to deliver lots of newspapers and letters, and that he would return home only very late that evening. Young Ostrich decided that this would be a very good day to put his plan into action. All he needed was a strong wind, and he got one!

It was a perfect day, just the right kind of weather for flying and making dreams come true! Young Ostrich blew up lots of balloons, tied them tightly together, climbed up with them onto the roof of Goose’s house, and, when the next gust of wind came, he pushed himself off with his feet as hard as he could and… flew!

The wind carried Young Ostrich over the Forest. He was so happy he almost forgot to breathe.

“Finally! Now I can fly like all the other birds!” he peeped in pleasure. “What a wonderful day it is today! This is what you call looking at the world from the height of flight,” thought Goose’s Student as the wind carried him over the treetops.

But Goose’s Charge did not get to look down on the world for long. The wind died down fairly quickly, and Young Ostrich slowly began to lose altitude. Soon he landed at the other end of the Big Forest.

But the bunch of multicolored balloons flying over the Forest had attracted the attention of its residents and of Snoutie, who at that moment was drinking mint tea in the garden, looking through a book, and gazing up at the clouds from time to time.

When he noticed the balloons appear in the sky from out of nowhere and float high above his head, Snoutie immediately wrote this somewhat philosophical song:

How nice it is to be able to fly,

Shooting high up into the sky!

Circling over forest and stream

With nothing in your head but a dream.

To be able to soar high in your mind,

And make your life one-of-a-kind.

It’s breadth of views that matter

And certainly not idle chatter.

The strange, multicolored balloons flew by and disappeared, and Snoutie turned back to his book.

Meanwhile, the satisfied traveler and balloonist was still trying to recover from the joy of his flight.

“So that’s what it means to fly!” he thought. “Now I think I can definitely take off on my own, without any help from balloons or the wind!”

He tried running faster around the edge of the Forest, flapping his wings with all his might, but the result was the same: Young Ostrich never took off.

“But, still, it has been an amazing day!” he decided, pronouncing these words out loud.

“H-o-o-o-t! It really has been quite a day!” rang out a voice from above the thick leaves of the old tree. “I think you will learn a lot from this day, Young Ostrich,” continued Wise Old Owl. “You will discover a lot of new and interesting things.”

“Hello, Wise Old Owl! I was trying to learn how to fly… I am a bird, after all….”

“You don’t have to tell me that,” noted Owl gaily. “I know all about your adventures in the air. And about everything else that goes on in the Big Forest,” he added meaningfully.