"I suppose," said the peasant, "that ninety-nine men in a hundred would go away and leave this poor creature's body to the beasts of prey." [It is notorious that man is the only living thing that will eat the animal.] "But I will give him good burial."
So he dug a hole, and was about tumbling him into it, when a solemn voice appeared to emanate from the corpse: "Let the dead bury their dead!"
"Whatever spirit hath wrought this miracle," cried the peasant, dropping upon his knees, "let him but add the trifling explanation of how the dead can perform this or any similar rite, and I am obedience itself. Otherwise, in goes Mr. 'Possum by these hands."
"Ah!" meditated the unhappy beast, "I have performed one miracle, but I can't keep it up all day, you know. The explanation demanded is a trifle too heavy for even the ponderous ingenuity of a marsupial."
And he permitted himself to be sodded over.
If the reader knows what lesson is conveyed by this narrative, he knows-just what the writer knows.
LXXXV.
Three animals on board a sinking ship prepared to take to the water. It was agreed among them that the bear should be lowered alongside; the mouse (who was to act as pilot) should embark upon him at once, to beat off the drowning sailors; and the monkey should follow, with provisions for the expedition-which arrangement was successfully carried out. The fourth day out from the wreck, the bear began to propound a series of leading questions concerning dinner; when it appeared that the monkey had provided but a single nut.
"I thought this would keep me awhile," he explained, "and you could eat the pilot."
Hearing this, the mouse vanished like a flash into the bear's ear, and fearing the hungry beast would then demand the nut, the monkey hastily devoured it. Not being in a position to insist upon his rights, the bear merely gobbled up the monkey.
LXXXVI.
A lamb suffering from thirst went to a brook to drink. Putting his nose to the water, he was interested to feel it bitten by a fish. Not liking fish, he drew back and sought another place; but his persecutor getting there before him administered the same rebuff. The lamb being rather persevering, and the fish having no appointments for that day, this was repeated a few thousand times, when the former felt justified in swearing:
"I'm eternally boiled!" said he, "if ever I experienced so many fish in all my life. It is discouraging. It inspires me with mint sauce and green peas."
He probably meant amazement and fear; under the influence of powerful emotions even lambs will talk "shop."
"Well, good bye," said his tormentor, taking a final nip at the animal's muzzle; "I should like to amuse you some more; but I have other fish to fry."
This tale teaches a good quantity of lessons; but it does not teach why this fish should have persecuted this lamb.
LXXXVII.
A mole, in pursuing certain geological researches, came upon the buried carcase of a mule, and was about to tunnel him.
"Slow down, my good friend," said the deceased. "Push your mining operations in a less sacrilegious direction. Respect the dead, as you hope for death!"
"You have that about you," said the gnome, "that must make your grave respected in a certain sense, for at least such a period as your immortal part may require for perfect exhalation. The immunity I accord is not conceded to your sanctity, but extorted by your scent. The sepulchres of moles only are sacred."
To moles, the body of a lifeless mule
A dead mule's carcase is, and nothing more.
LXXXVIII.
"I think I'll set my sting into you, my obstructive friend," said a bee to an iron pump against which she had flown; "you are always more or less in the way."
"If you do," retorted the other, "I'll pump on you, if I can get any one to work my handle."
Exasperated by this impotent conservative threat, she pushed her little dart against him with all her vigour. When she tried to sheathe it again she couldn't, but she still made herself useful about the hive by hooking on to small articles and dragging them about. But no other bee would sleep with her after this; and so, by her ill-judged resentment, she was self-condemmed to a solitary cell.
The young reader may profitably beware.
LXXXIX.
A Chinese dog, who had been much abroad with his master, was asked, upon his return, to state the most ludicrous fact he had observed.
"There is a country," said he, "the people of which are eternally speaking about 'Persian honesty,' 'Persian courage,' 'Persian loyalty,' 'Persian love of fair play,' amp;c., as if the Persians enjoyed a clear monopoly of these universal virtues. What is more, they speak thus in blind good faith-with a dense gravity of conviction that is simply amazing."
"But," urged the auditors, "we requested something ludicrous, not amazing."
"Exactly; the ludicrous part is the name of their country, which is-"
"What?"
" Persia."
XC.
There was a calf, who, suspecting the purity of the milk supplied him by his dam, resolved to transfer his patronage to the barn-yard pump.
"Better," said he, "a pure article of water, than a diet that is neither fish, flesh, nor fowl."
But, although extremely regular in his new diet-taking it all the time-he did not seem to thrive as might have been expected. The larger orders he drew, the thinner and the more transparent he became; and at last, when the shadow of his person had become to him a vague and unreal memory, he repented, and applied to be reinstated in his comfortable sinecure at the maternal udder.
"Ah! my prodigal son," said the old lady, lowering her horns as if to permit him to weep upon her neck, "I regret that it is out of my power to celebrate your return by killing the fatted calf; but what I can I will do."
And she killed him instead.
Mot herl yaff ecti onk nocksal loth ervir tu esperfec tlyc old.[E]
XCI.
"There, now," said a kitten, triumphantly, laying a passive mouse at the feet of her mother. "I flatter myself I am coming on with a reasonable degree of rapidity. What will become of the minor quadrupeds when I have attained my full strength and ferocity, it is mournful to conjecture!"
"Did he give you much trouble?" inquired the aged ornament of the hearth-side, with a look of tender solicitude.
"Trouble!" echoed the kitten, "I never had such a fight in all my life! He was a downright savage-in his day."
"My Falstaffian issue," rejoined the Tabby, dropping her eyelids and composing her head for a quiet sleep, "the above is a toy mouse."
XCII.
A crab who had travelled from the mouth of the Indus all the way to Ispahan, knocked, with much chuckling, at the door of the King's physician.
"Who's there?" shouted the doctor, from his divan within.
"A bad case of cancer," was the complacent reply.
"Good!" returned the doctor; "I'll cure you, my friend."
So saying, he conducted his facetious patient into the kitchen, and potted him in pickle. It cured him-of practical jocularity.
May the fable heal you, if you are afflicted with that form of evil.