The Young and Field Literary Readers Part 13

BEAR. I tell you it is the husk of a fruit.

WOLF. And I tell you it is a nest.

GOAT. And I tell you it is a root. Surely it is a root!

OWL. Let me speak. I have lived among men, and I have seen many such things as this. It is a man's shoe.

BEAR. What is a man?

GOAT. What is a shoe?

OWL. A man is a thing with two legs. He can stand up like a monkey, he can walk like a bird, but he cannot fly. He can eat and talk, and he can do many things that we cannot do.

BEASTS. O, no!

BIRDS. No, no!

BEAR. How can that be? How can anything with two legs do more than we, who have four?

BIRDS. And this thing you call a man cannot be good for much if he cannot fly.

GOAT. But what does the man do with this root?

OWL. It is not a root. I tell you it is a shoe.

WOLF. And what is a shoe?

OWL. It is what the man puts on his feet. He puts one of these shoes on each of his feet.

BIRDS. Hear the owl talk!

BEASTS. Who ever heard of such a thing as a shoe?

GOAT. Hear that! The man puts them on his feet!

WOLF. It is not true!

BEAR. No, it is not true! The owl doesn't know.

WOLF. You know nothing, Owl. Get out of our woods. You are not fit to live with us.

BEAR. Yes, Owl, go away!

BEASTS. Leave us! Go away!

BIRDS. Leave us! Leave us, Owl! You surely don't know what you are talking about!

(The beasts chase the owl out of the woods.)

OWL. (Going off) But it is a shoe, anyway.

THE CAMEL AND THE JACKAL

Once upon a time a camel and a jackal lived together by the side of a river.

One fine morning the jackal said:

"There is a big field of sugar cane over on the other side of the river. Take me on your back, Brother Camel, and I will show you where it is. You may eat all the sugar cane, and I will find some crabs or fish on the sh.o.r.e."

This pleased the camel very much. So he waded through the river and carried the jackal on his back.

The jackal could not swim.

The camel found the sugar cane, and the jackal found some crabs.

The jackal ate much faster than the camel and soon had enough.

"Now, Brother Camel," he said, "take me back. I have had enough."

"But I haven't," said the camel.

So the camel went on eating.

The jackal tried to think how he could make the camel go home.

At last he thought of a way.

He began to bark and to cry and to make such a noise that all the men from the village ran out to see what was going on.

There they found the camel eating the sugar cane, and at once they beat the poor beast with sticks and so drove him out of the field.

"Brother Camel, hadn't you better go home now?" asked the jackal.

"Yes, jackal, jump on my back," said the camel.

The jackal jumped on his back, and the camel waded through the river with him.

As he went, he said to the jackal:

"Brother Jackal, I think you have not been very good to me to-day. Why did you make such a noise?"

"O, I don't know," said the jackal. "It's a way I sometimes have. I like to sing a little, after dinner."

The camel waded on.

When they got out where the water was deep, the camel stopped and said, "Jackal, I feel as if I must roll a little in the water.

"O, no, no!" said the jackal. "Why do you want to do that?"