“But I’m supposed to, and you’re not,” said Buddie.
“Well, I like that,” said the Stork, though it was easy to see he didn’t. “What are legs for—to keep off the sun, like a parasol?”
Buddie felt that she was in another losing argument, but she stood by her small guns.
“I’ve seen storks before,” said she; “not real live ones, you know, but in a picture-book; and they all stood on one leg, and looked—” She paused. Just how did they look?
“Foolish?” hazarded the Stork.
“Just like four,” said Buddie.
“Indeed?” remarked the Stork. “I’ve heard about looking like sixty, but never like four. And pray, how must one get one’s self up to look like four? I am curious to know.”
“You would have to hold up one leg,” said Buddie.
“Oh, one from two leaves four, does it?” said the Stork. “That’s a new kind of arithmetic.”
I think, Little One, that Buddie’s explanation was scarcely clear enough. A stork looks like four when he is wading,—stalking his game,—at which time he lifts one foot slowly and puts it down very carefully; but when he is resting he has to look like one or eleven.