One day a Mother and her young daughter were walking in a park. As they pass along the path the Mother points out to her little girl the wonderful, majestic beauty of Nature. Thinking all the while how  nice it is to be able to guide her daughter by the hand through some of the things that, as a child, she found wondrous and fresh. She kneels next to her daughter and whispers “Look dear, do you see all the squirrels as they gather up their nuts and berries? Look how fast they are!” They stay there for a moment appreciating the scene. They watch as the furry little squirrels dart from tree to the ground, ground to nut, and right back up the tree. The little girl looks from the squirrels to her Mother beaming with curiosity. She points to the squirrels that jump up the tree squealing with amazed excitement hand over her mouth so not to ruin the moment by scaring the furry acrobats off.

     The pair moves on as the Mother suggests that the two of them leave the squirrels to their work. They continue along the path deeper into the well kept woods. The mother allows the little girl stray a short distance from the path so she can pretend to be just like the squirrels. With fist-fulls of dead sticks, needles, and leaves the girl bounces back and forth from her Mother to the forest floor trying to prove to her Mother that she too can be as quick and efficient as the little squirrels. Each time when the girl comes back to her mother she holds out the dirt and leaves looking up with a smile and giggle. “Here!” she says and then runs off for another trip.

     The little girl, in the throws of her scavenging, reaches up and pulls a blossom from one of the trees. She comes scooting back to her Mother dropping the rest of her treasures as she goes leaving them strewn about the forest floor again. Jumping in front of her Mother the young girl lifts the flower up in both hands. Like a statue of an offering the girls says nothing. Without scolding, the Mother looks down at her daughter and says: “You shouldn’t pluck these things off the trees, dear. The flowers are the children of the trees.” She smiles at her own comparison as she points to the trunk of a blooming tree near by. “The flowers need to be close to the tree until they’re ready to go out on their own. If you pluck a flower away from the tree before it’s ready it may never grow up to get to be a tree of its own.” The young girl looks back over her shoulder at the tree before walking back over and placing the bright petaled blossom at the base of the tree, nestled among the roots and fallen leaves.

     Soon Mother and daughter find their way into the deepest part of the wooded area of the park when all of a sudden there comes a small whistled chirp from one of the trees near by. The Mother stops again, pulls her daughter close and tells the little girl to hush by placing her finger over her already closed lips. The girl stops dead and looks up at her Mother wide-eyed with her own tiny, little finger over her own closed lips. The Mother scans the trees and finds, perched on the lower branches of a massive fir tree, a flock of tiny Chickadees. Again the Mother kneels close to her daughter, finger still pressed to her lips, and puts her head close to her daughter, pointing with her free hand to the birds in the fir tree. Following her Mothers guiding finger the little girl looks up. When she finally sees the birds her own finger drops from her lips and her mouth falls open. The birds chirp and adjust their wings on the branch. The Mother whispers to her daughter “listen dear, the birds are singing to each other. Don’t they have beautiful voices?” The little girl nods furiously eyes shut tight listening to the birds. 
    Slowly the girl’s hands drift to the corners of her unbuttoned little red rain coat. Once she has a hold of both of the corners she bursts away from her Mother flapping her red plastic wings and shouting in a shrill singsong voice that only a Mother could love “chirp-chirp! chirp-chirp!” The birds explode from the tree chirping wildly to the insane beat of their flapping wings. Once the last bird is gone the girl comes skipping back to her Mother, hands at her sides still swinging the corners of her coat. The girl stops in front of her mother looking up with a mischievous smile. “Do you think they liked my song Momma?” Her Mother rolls her eyes and in a playfully exhausted voice says: “I’m sure they loved it honey.”

     The woods open up to the sunshine after a fresh rain. It had been raining earlier that morning so the two women, the young following the lead of the older, pull their hoods from their heads and shake out their hair lifting their faces, eyes shut tight, to the warmth of the sun. The Mother opens her eyes first and looks around her finding her eyes drawn to the glittering of the sun reflecting off the small pond just off to her left. When her daughter has finished sunning her small round face Mother leads her from the path to the edge of the little pond. When they reach the waters edge Mother notices a group of ducks on the other side of the pond. A mother duck and her five downy ducklings float in the shallow water dipping their heads in and splashing the water over their heads and backs quacking loudly. “Look dear, the momma duck is telling the baby ducks to have a bath and the baby ducks are arguing. Just like you when it’s your bath time.” The little girl frowns staring at the ducks and whispers just loud enough for her mother to hear: “poor little ducks.” The Mother smiles chuckling a little as she looks from her daughter to the ducks she says: “They do make bath time look like more fun though, don’t they?” Her daughter looks up and nods admittedly then looks around until her eyes fall on a big puddle just behind her back on the path. Her little hands drift slowly to her jacket corners again. In a moment she’s off flapping, laughing, quacking, and splashing with her matching red rain boots in the puddle. “Stop that! You’re going to get all dirty!” her Mother shouts running after her daughter pulling her now soaking little red duckling from the puddle. “I was having a bath all by myself Momma!” the little girl giggles up to her Mother. “Oh really? Good for you. I guess you won’t mind finishing at home now.” pulling the struggling child away from the puddle. As they turn around to wave goodbye to the ducks, who have begun swimming deeper into the pond, a seagull swoops down in a breakneck dive out of the sky and collides with one of the swimming ducklings killing it instantly and breaking one of it’s own wings.

     Both the Mother and daughter stand, shocked, hand in hand for a moment in silence until the daughter looks up at her Mother and asks “Why did the seagull do that Momma?”