In a courtyard full of sunshine, there stood a tall mango tree. Its branches were wide and its leaves were thick and green, and in summer it gave the sweetest mangoes in all the neighbourhood.
One spring morning, a tiny sparrow came and hopped from branch to branch. "May I build my nest here?" she asked the tree.
"Of course," said the mango tree warmly. "My branches are your branches."
The sparrow worked hard all week, collecting dry grass, soft cotton from the fields, and a few colourful threads she found near the village well. She wove them all together into the cosiest little nest you ever saw.
Soon the nest held three speckled eggs. The sparrow sat on them day and night, singing to them softly in the morning and telling them stories in the evening.
One rainy afternoon, a little girl came running into the courtyard to shelter under the tree. She looked up and saw the nest.
"What are those?" she asked her grandmother.
"Eggs," said Dadi. "And that sparrow is a mother, just like your Mummy. She is keeping her babies warm."
The girl watched quietly, and the sparrow watched back.
On a bright Tuesday morning, the eggs cracked open — crack, crack, crack — and three tiny beaks appeared, opening wide and chirping.
The little girl clapped and laughed. The sparrow sang her happiest song. And the mango tree rustled all its leaves like a round of applause.
That summer, when the mangoes were ripe, the family ate sweet mangoes in the courtyard while the baby sparrows learnt to fly — and the tree was happy, because its branches held all of them.