One day an eagle chanced to meet a starling. Puffing itself up so that its white crown glowed in the sun, he said, “If you’re not a disgusting, vulgar thing, I don't know what is. I live in the largest house of any bird. I have a magnificent view for miles around. I send my chicks to private school and before they’re a year old they can already soar above the clouds. But you have no tail worth speaking of. Your plumage is drab. You live by eating garbage and hustling a meal wherever you can. You steal the homes of nobler creatures like the blue bird and flicker. You came into this country an illegal alien and have multiplied like jack rabbits.
“Why,” sniffed the eagle with a regal turn of his beak, “I’ve seen you huddling on chimney tops getting covered with disgusting soot just so you can keep warm in winter, whereas I have this magnificent coat to keep me warm, and besides, I can soar south to my winter condominium anytime I please.”
While the eagle was thus expatiating, the starling stood hunched up and silent, looking shame-faced. “One of the glories of nature, I ain’t,” he thought to himself, but even so the eagle’s words grated.
As soon as the eagle flew away on majestic wings as wide as twenty starlings, a crow came along. “Brother,” said he, “don’t let that pompous windbag get to you. Follow me and I’ll show you how Mr. High-and-Mighty makes his living.” Together they flew to a tall pine tree and watched the eagle first steal a fish from an osprey and then, after he’d greedily devoured it, fly down and squabble with some vultures over the rotten carcass of a dead deer.
“Seen enough, Brother?” the crow asked with a wink.
“Yes,” said the starling, already feeling better, “I see that birds of a feather come in all sizes, shapes and colors, and the only thing that really distinguishes them is the size of their beaks.”
DICK AND JANE REMEMBER
THE SIMPLE SENTENCES