OCR Text |
Show Fairy TaM Bonner MR. CRANE'S TALK "Mr. Crane stood with one leg curled up by his side, and looked at Mrs. Crane as he began to talk- "My dear," he said, "I heard the keeper talking only the other day, and this is what he said : " "Those cranes are the smartest birds they can keep so still no one knows whether they're alive or noL " 'They look like statues.' " "What are statues?" shrieked Mrs. Crane. "No wonder you ask, my dear," said Mr. Crane. "I didn't know until I heard them talking some more. "I found out that statues were images of real people and animals made out of some material which had rro life to it at all. "Statues absolutely cannot move. They are like pieces of furniture or a house for example. "If they longed for something, such as to take a walk, they couldn't move." "Poor statues," said Mrs. Crane. "Can't they eat?" "No," replied Mr. Crane, "they can't eat, and they can't talk. But people like thera for they're made to look like real things and so they have some sense to them after all. "I ,1ust feel sorry for them, though." "Well, of course, I did at first," said Mrs. Crane, "but now that I think Mr. Crane Stood With One Leg Curled Up. about It I don't really feel sorry for them, for they don't even know they're statues so they are Eot unhappy. "I never believe In being unhappy about something no one else is. In fact, it's n mistake to be unhappy at all it only makes one well unhappy un-happy I" she ended in a loud voice. "True," said Mr. Crane, "but you see it is clever of us to look like something some-thing we are not. "We can keep so quiet that no one even sees us quiver or move a muscle. "And after I had heard the keeper talking about us' I remembered the time when I made a bird think I was not alive. "He was flying Into my house from the rain and I was standing in the doorway. "He thought I was a new kind of door until suddenly I jumped at him. "He Just got out In time and escaped with his life. But he must have thought it was clever of me to have kept so still." "It's nice to be considered clever," Mrs. Crane said. "And It's most extremely ex-tremely useful for us. We can fool others, but no one can fool us, for we can move so very quickly." "And," continued Mr. Crane, "folks' eyes get blurred looking at us often when we stay so still and they have to look away at something else before they can gaze at us again." |