"None of them really knows what a soldier is," said the Mother of the Crow in a low voice to Smaly.
"Oh," said Smaly; "but you know, don't you?"
"Certainly I know. Soldiers are beings who cut up the meat that men like you eat, who hack down big trees, who kill the beautiful horned animals for food. You see I know perfectly well what a soldier is, and one can always tell a real soldier because he carries big knives, axes, saws, razors, and scythes."
"H'm! Not at all," contradicted Smaly with the air of one beginning a lecture. "A soldier is a man who fights other soldiers."
"What?" asked the Mother of the Crow. "How is that possible when they are both the same thing?"
"I assure you that it is so," replied Smaly.
The Mother of the Crow reflected; but catching sight of the Wigs, who were putting the soldiers back in their boxes at the end of the courtyard, she began again.
They had all put on Thick Gloves
"He," she said, nodding her head towards the Chief Contractor, "has no idea of what a soldier is. He has never seen one excepting in a painting that a cousin sent him. It is a painting that represents a court in full dress. There are several soldiers with knives standing round the cousin, who is the President of the Republic of Pasenipus. They wear breastplates of gold to prevent the blood of the animals they kill soiling their fine coats. The Chief Contractor thought that these breastplates must be eggs, and, as you see, these soldiers are just eggs with legs. The Chief Contractor has had oxeye daisies fastened to their heels, because in the picture there were golden daisies fastened to the boots of the soldiers."