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What is the theme of this passage?
One day a thief who had stolen a bag of pearls from a local merchant was fleeing the soldiers who would catch him. They chased him through the countryside and across many barnyards. Along the way, he threw the bag of pearls aside so he would not be caught with any evidence.
After he was gone, a rooster came out into the barnyard, pecking for grain. The rooster saw the pearls and thought them to be shiny. He looked down closely at them and called to a hen.
“Hey mother hen,” the rooster clucked. “Look at all of these shiny pearls.”
The hen answered back, “Taste them. If they are shiny, they may be good to eat.”
So the rooster nibbled at a pearl, and it was so hard it hurt his beak.
“Ow!” cried the rooster. “These shiny treats are no good. I would rather have a single fine grain of corn than all these shiny pearls together.” And with that, he kicked them away into the fields, never to trouble him again.
Things have no value if they can't be used