“Lucy,” said daddy, “had her home in a big city apartment house.”
“Down in the main hallway, on a stand there, was an elephant. Not a real elephant, for of course a real elephant could hardly find room on a hallway stand, to say the least. This one was made out of stone and he was exactly the same color as a real, live elephant.
“Now often Lucy would come in from dancing class, or from play, or from school, and she would wonder what it would be like to be a stone elephant, and she used to feel very sorry for the elephant, always standing in the hall.
“‘I know,’ she would say, ‘that the elephant isn’t a real, live one, but just the same, it does seem funny to be always in the same place, day after day.’
“And then one evening when Lucy was asleep the Dream King sent the elephant to call on her.
“‘I know,’ the elephant began, without even waiting for Lucy to make a curtsy as she might have done if he had only given her time, ‘that you have often wondered about me.’
“‘I have,’ said Lucy, ‘it is true.’
“‘But,’ said the elephant, ‘you mustn’t, for I am very happy. The reason I am happy is because I haven’t the brains or the feelings to be unhappy because I am always in one place.
“‘If I were a real elephant I would want to go out in the sunshine, I would want to eat, I would even want to play baseball; perhaps I would march in parades. But I’m not a real elephant—I’m only a make-believe one, and I haven’t any feeling at all—no, not a scrap of feeling.
“‘And I haven’t any brains. I couldn’t even smile at you if you were awake. It’s the old Dream King who is helping me to smile now.’
“And Lucy noticed that the elephant was smiling, such a funny, droll, stone-elephant smile.
“‘No, Lucy,’ the elephant continued, ‘you need never feel sorry for me because I am always in one place. I am like a table or a chair or a bed—except I am made in the shape of an animal.
“‘It is nice to be a stone elephant if one has always been one,’ it said, ‘and I suppose it is nice to be a little girl if one has always been one,’ and it waved its trunk and was gone.”