In China there lived a great king. He had a beautiful palace. All round the palace there was a big garden. In the garden lived a nightingale. A nightingale is a small brown bird. It is not colorful; it is not pretty; but it can sing beautiful songs.

One day, the king said to the servants, `I want to hear the nightingale. Bring it to me.’ But his servants did not know about the nightingale.

`What is a nightingale?’ they whispered. `Where does it live?’

`I know’ said a small girl. She worked in the kitchen. `The nightingale lives in the forest. I will show you’.

So the servants went to the forest. First they heard a cow. `Moo. .moo!’ said the cow.

`How pretty!’ said the servants. `What a beautiful song!’

That is not the nightingale, you sillies,’ said the girl. That is a cow.’

Then they heard a frog. `Crrk!’ said the frog.

`How pretty!’ said the servants. `What a beautiful song!’

`That is not a nightingale, you sillies,’ said the girl. That is a dog.’

Then she heard the nightingale. A beautiful song came from the trees. `There it is! She said.

`What? That brown bird?’ said the servants. `It is not very pretty.’

But they took the nightingale to the king. When the king heard the nightingale’s song, he said, `What a beautiful song! Put the bird in a golden cage. I will listen to its songs every day.’

Every day the nightingale sang to the king. But it was not happy. It did not like the golden cage. It wanted to live in the forest.

Then, one day the king got a present. It was a beautiful golden bird in a golden cage. When the servants turned a key, it sang a song. Everybody said, `What a pretty bird! What a beautiful song!’ they forgot about the real nightingale. One day, a servant left the door of its cage open and it flew away to the forest.

Some years later, the king became ill. He asked his servants to bring him the golden nightingale. But they key to the golden nightingale was broken. It could sing any more. The king was sad and went to bed. The servants started talking: `The old king is going to die. Let’s leave and go to the new king.’

The old king laid his bed and thought, `Nobody likes me now. I am going to die.’

Just then, he heard a beautiful song outside his window. It was the nightingale-the real nightingale. `What a beautiful song!’ thought the king. He felt happy. Soon he felt better too.

`Please come and live with me again,’ he said to the nightingale.

`No,’ said the nightingale. `I like living in the forest; but every day I will come to your window and sing for you.’

`Thank you,’ said the king.

Soon he got better. His servants were very surprised. The king lived for many years. Every day the nightingale flew to his window and sang its songs-but every night it flew back to its home in the forest. – Nice nightingale.