English Original
There were once two crows who were fierce rivals.
One day, one of the crows said to the other, "You realize, of course, that I can fly much higher than you can."
"Don't be ridiculous," the other crow said. "Everyone knows that I can fly much higher than you."
"No, you can't," the first crow said.
"Yes, I can," the second crow replied, and the argument went on and on.
At last, they decided to have a contest to settle the argument.
"We will compete to find out who can fly the highest while carrying a sack," the first crow said.
They argued for some time over the size of the sack, but eventually came to an agreement. Then there was further argument about what each sack would contain.
Finally, they agreed that the first crow would fill his sack with cotton and the second crow would fill his with salt. The first crow thought he was being very clever to agree to this because, of course, salt is much heavier than cotton.
At last, they were ready for the great contest, and holding their sacks in their beaks, they flew up into the sky.
They had not been flying for long, however, when it began to rain — as the second crow had expected it would.
As the cotton got wetter and wetter, it became heavier and heavier. However, the salt just dissolved in the rain, so the second crow was easily able to fly higher than the first.
中文翻译
从前，有两只乌鸦是激烈的竞争对手。
一天，其中一只对另一只说：“你当然清楚，我飞得比你高得多。”
“别荒谬了，”另一只说，“大家都知道我比你飞得高。”
“不，你不行，”第一只乌鸦说。
“是的，我行，”第二只乌鸦回答。它们喋喋不休地争吵起来。
最后，它们决定进行一场比赛来解决争执。
“我们比一比，看谁能带着一个袋子飞得更高，”第一只乌鸦说。
它们为袋子的大小争论了一阵子，但最终达成了一致。接着，它们又为每个袋子里装什么争吵起来。
最后，它们同意第一只乌鸦的袋子里装满棉花，第二只乌鸦的袋子里装满盐。第一只乌鸦心想自己同意这个方案真是聪明，因为盐当然比棉花重得多。
终于，它们准备好进行这场重大比赛了。它们将袋子衔在嘴里，飞上了天空。
然而，没飞多久，天就开始下起雨来——正如第二只乌鸦所料。
棉花越来越湿，变得越来越沉。然而，盐在雨水中融化了，因此第二只乌鸦轻而易举地就比第一只飞得更高。