GILBERT CROW AND THE MARSHMALLOW CASTLE

by Fr. Andrew Marr, OSB

Once upon a time there was a crow named Gilbert. Gilbert could be a rather nice crow. That is to say, he didn't caw at the top of his lungs and disturb others all of the time, but only some of the time.

But what Gilbert Crow could not do was be nice to anybody but himself when it came to food. It seemed that he was born with such a greedy appetite that no amount of food could satisfy him. When he was little, he fought for more than his share of the worms his mother brought back to the nest. When he grew up, he grew greedier still. If he was pulling a worm out of the ground and thought another bird had a larger one, he would forsake his worm and run over and snatch the worm out of the other bird's beak. Gilbert could not even be satisfied with just the food other birds ate. When he saw squirrels eating nuts, he swooped down and took them away. When he saw human beings out for a picnic, he would swoop down and fly off with all the potato chips his beak could carry.

Nobody would come to Gilbert's tree for dinner a second time because Gilbert ate all the food himself before any for his guests had a chance to eat. Nobody wanted him over for dinner because, again, he would eat all the food off everybody else's plate. That is why Gilbert did not have any friends.

Not having any friends to pass the time with, Gilbert would go flying off by himself to explore what he could explore and see what he could see. One day, Gilbert Crow flew so far that he came upon a marshmallow castle. Never had he seen so much marshmallow! He had once taken a roasted marshmallow off a child's stick at a campfire, but now he had before him enough marshmallow to keep him happy for at least a week! Gilbert flew up to one of the castle's towers and pecked at it with his beak. The marshmallow was delicious. Never had Gilbert been so happy. But then the king of the Castle leaned out of the window in another tower and glared at Gilbert Crow.

"Hey you! What are you doing, eating my castle?" asked the king.

Gilbert was so absorbed in eating the marshmallow that he did not reply. So the king had to ask again:

"What are you doing, eating my castle?"

Gilbert would have ignored the king the second time as well, only his beak had gotten so full of sticky marshmallows, that he couldn't open it, not even to take another bite of marshmallow. So Gilbert gave the king a dirty look, blaming him for his difficulty.

"I said, what are you doing, eating my castle?" thundered the king.

"Mhhmmhhmhm," said Gilbert, for he could not get his beak open wide enough to talk.

"What's the matter with you?" asked the king, "Are you stupid or something?"

"Mhhhhmmmmhhmhmm," said Gilbert, trying to get some help for his stuck beak.

But he got no sympathy from the king and so Gilbert flew away. He kept trying to open his beak, but he couldn't. He tried taking a drink of water from a river, but he couldn't open his beak enough to get any water down his gullet. When he reached the squirrel's tree, all he could say was: "mmmhmhmhm."

The squirrels scratched their heads and suggested he speak in the forest tongue, but Gilbert couldn't. The squirrels thought nothing of seeing that Gilbert's beak was full; it was always full and so they did nothing to help him.

More worried about his fate than ever, Gilbert flew away to ask the other birds to help, but they could not understand him either. Some even laughed at him.

"Ol' Gilbert will eat anything, even white worms!" one bird exclaimed to another.

"Mmmmhmmmhhhmm," Gilbert said, desperately, but he couldn't convince them he wasn't eating white worms and that he was in trouble and needed help.

And so Gilbert kept on flying in search of help, until he came upon a boy playing in his back yard.

"Mmmhmmm!" cried Gilbert the Crow.

"What's the matter, Crow?" asked the boy.

"MMMHHMMHM!"

"Oh, I see, you ate too many marshmallows, didn't you?"

"Mhm."

"Hmm. Come to think of it, you look like the crow that stole a marshmallow from me at the camp out last year."

"Mhm."

"Are you sorry?"

"Mhm."

"Okay."

Since he was nice enough to forgive the crow from stealing a roasted marshmallow, the boy pulled one part of Gilbert’s beak away from the other. He pulled and he pulled, and he pulled some more, until finally the beak opened. The boy ran into the house and ran back out with a bowl filled with water. The crow drank it all up and felt ever so much better.

"Thank you very much," said the Gilbert, "you saved my life."

"You're welcome," said the boy. "Can you do something for me?"

"Do something for you?"

"Yea, talking animals always do something in return for a good deed."

"They do? How do you know?"

"It's what happens in stories."

"Oh, I see."

Gilbert hadn't read any stories so he had to take the boy's word for it.

"Okay, what do you want?" asked Gilbert.

"Can you fly to the top of this apple tree and bring me one of the apples up there? I can't reach them and I’m hungry for an apple."

With his mouth still full with the taste of marshmallow, the thought of food sickened Gilbert and he wasn’t used to doing anything for anybody but himself. However, Gilbert knew that he would still be in a terrible fix if the boy hadn’t helped him and so he knew that it was a good thing that the boy was willing to do something for somebody else who was in trouble. And so Gilbert flew up to the top of the tree, picked an apple with his beak and brought it down to the boy. When the boy bit into his apple, he looked so happy, that Gilbert enjoyed the apple almost as much as if he was eating it himself.

"Oh thank you, Crow," said the boy, "would you like to share this apple with me?"

Gilbert's beak watered at the sight, but he still couldn't eat anything just then.

"Not today," said Gilbert, "but maybe tomorrow I'll come back, fetch another apple for you and share it with you."

“Okay,” said the boy, “it’s a deal.”

Then Gilbert flew off, a nicer and wiser crow than he was before he ate the tower of the marshmallow castle.