The Wolf and the Feeding Goat
A Wolf saw a Goat feeding at the summit of a rock, where he could not get at her.
“Why do you stay up there in that sterile place and go hungry?” said the Wolf. “Down here where I am the broken-bottle vine cometh up as a flower, the celluloid collar blossoms as the rose, and the tin-can tree brings forth after its kind.”
“That is true, no doubt,” said the Goat, “but how about the circus-poster crop? I hear that it failed this year down there.”
The Wolf, perceiving that he was being chaffed, went away and resumed his duties at the doors of the poor.
Jupiter and the Birds
Jupiter commanded all the birds to appear before him, so that he might choose the most beautiful to be their king. The ugly jackdaw, collecting all the fine feathers which had fallen from the other birds, attached them to his own body and appeared at the examination, looking very gay. The other birds, recognising their own borrowed plumage, indignantly protested, and began to strip him.
“Hold!” said Jupiter; “this self-made bird has more sense than any of you. He is your king.”
The Lion and the Mouse
A Lion who had caught a Mouse was about to kill him, when the Mouse said:
“If you will spare my life, I will do as much for you some day.”
The Lion, good-naturedly let him go. It happened shortly afterwards that the Lion was caught by some hunters and bound with cords. The Mouse, passing that way, and seeing that his benefactor was helpless, gnawed off his tail.
The Old Man and His Sons
An Old Man, afflicted with a family of contentious Sons, brought in a bundle of sticks and asked the young men to break it. After repeated efforts they confessed that it could not be done. “Behold,” said the Old Man, “the advantage of unity; as long as these sticks are in alliance they are invincible, but observe how feeble they are individually.”
Pulling a single stick from the bundle, he broke it easily upon the head of the eldest Son, and this he repeated until all had been served.
The Crab and His Son
A Logical Crab said to his Son, “Why do you not walk straight forward? Your sidelong gait is singularly ungraceful.”
“Why don’t you walk straight forward yourself,” said the Son.
“Erring youth,” replied the Logical Crab, “you are introducing new and irrelevant matter.”
The North Wind and the Sun
The Sun and the North Wind disputed which was the more powerful, and agreed that he should be declared victor who could the sooner strip a traveller of his clothes. So they waited until a traveller came by. But the traveller had been indiscreet enough to stay over night at a summer hotel, and had no clothes.
The Mountain and the Mouse
A Mountain was in labour, and the people of seven cities had assembled to watch its movements and hear its groans. While they waited in breathless expectancy out came a Mouse.
“Oh, what a baby!” they cried in derision.
“I may be a baby,” said the Mouse, gravely, as he passed outward through the forest of shins, “but I know tolerably well how to diagnose a volcano.”
The Bellamy and the Members
The Members of a body of Socialists rose in insurrection against their Bellamy.
“Why,” said they, “should we be all the time tucking you out with food when you do nothing to tuck us out?”
So, resolving to take no further action, they went away, and looking backward had the satisfaction to see the Bellamy compelled to sell his own book.
OLD SAWS WITH NEW TEETH
CERTAIN ANCIENT FABLES APPLIED TO
THE LIFE OF OUR TIMES
The Wolf and the Crane
A Rich Man wanted to tell a certain lie, but the lie was of such monstrous size that it stuck in his throat; so he employed an Editor to write it out and publish it in his paper as an editorial. But when the Editor presented his bill, the Rich Man said:
“Be content—is it nothing that I refrained from advising you about investments?”
