THE GRATEFUL GOAT

ONCE upon a time a Butcher bought a Goat; but as he was going to kill the Goat, and make him into meat for the table, the Goat opened his mouth, and said-- "If you kill me, Butcher, you will be a few shillings the richer; but if you spare my life, I will repay you for your kindness." This Butcher had killed many goats in his day, but he never before heard one of them talk. Goats can talk to each other, as you must have heard; but most of them do not learn English. So the Butcher thought there must be something special about this Goat, and did not kill him. The Goat felt very grateful that his life had been spared for a few more happy summers; and when he found himself free, the first thing he did was to go into the forest to see if he could find some means of repaying the Butcher's kind deed. As he trotted along under the trees, stopping now and then to crop some tender shoot that came within reach, he met a Jackal. "I am glad to see you, Goatee," said the Jackal; "and now I'm going to eat you." "Don't be such a fool," said the Goat. "Can't you see I am nothing but skin and bones? Wait till I get fat. That's why I am here, just to get fat; and when I'm nice and fat, you may eat me and welcome." The Goat was very skinny, in truth, and he pulled in his breath to make himself look more skinny. So the Jackal said-- "All right, look sharp, and be sure you look out for me on your way back." "I shan't forget, Jackal," said the Goat. "Ta ta!" By-and-by he fell in with a Wolf. "Ha!" said the Wolf, smacking his lips; "here's what I want. Get ready, my Goat, for I am going to eat you." "Oh, surely not," said the Goat; "a skinny old thing like me!" He drew in his breath again, and looked very skinny indeed. "I have come here to fatten myself, and when I'm fat, you shall eat me if you like." "Well," said the Wolf, "you don't look like a prize Goat, I grant you. Go along then, but look out for me when you come back." "Oh, I shall look out for you!" said the Goat, and away he trotted. By-and-by he came to a church. He went into the church, and there he saw last Sunday's collection plate, full of gold coins. In that country, any one would have been ashamed to put coppers into the plate, not because they were rich, for they were not, but because they were generous. Now, Goats are not taught that they must not steal, but they think they have a right to whatever they can get hold of; so this Goat opened his mouth, and licked up all the sovereigns, and hid them under his tongue. The Goat next went to a flower-shop, and asked the man who sold the flowers to make some wreaths, and cover him up with them, horns and all. So the man covered him up with flowers, till he looked like a large rose-bush. Then the Goat popped out a sovereign from his mouth, to pay the man, and very glad the man was to get so much for his roses. Then the Goat set out on his homeward way. He looked out for the Wolf, as he had promised to do; and when the Wolf saw him coming along, he thought he was a rose-bush. The Wolf was not at all surprised to see a rose-bush walking along the road, for many were the strange things he had seen in his life; and if you come to think of it, this was no stranger than a Goat that could talk English. "Good afternoon, Rose-bush," said the Wolf; "have you seen a Goat passing this way?" "Oh yes," said the Goat, "I saw him a few minutes ago back there along the road." "Many thanks, Rose-bush," said the Wolf; "I am much obliged to you," and away he ran in the direction in which the Goat had come. By-and-by he came to the Jackal. "Hullo, Rose-bush!" said the Jackal. "Have you seen a Goat anywhere as you came along?" "Oh yes," replied the Goat, out of the roses; "I saw him just now, and he was talking to a big Wolf." "Good heavens!" said the Jackal, "I must look sharp, if I want some Goat to-day," and off he galloped, in a great hurry. In the evening he got to the Butcher's house. "Hullo!" said the Butcher, "what have we here?" He knew that rose-bushes could not walk, but he could not make out what it was at all. "Baa! baa!" said the Goat; "it's your grateful old Goat, come back to pay you for your kindness." And with these words, he spouted out all the sovereigns he found in the church, except the one he paid to the flower-man. The Butcher was delighted to see so many sovereigns: he asked no questions, because he thought it wiser. He took the sovereigns, and found they were enough to keep him all his life, without killing any more goats. So he lived in peace, and the Goat spent his remaining years browsing comfortably in the Butcher's paddock. The Cunning Jackal Or, The Biter Bit A JACKAL lived on one side of a deep river, and on the other side were fields upon fields of ripe melons. The Jackal was always hungry, and he had eaten everything within reach; so he used to sit on the river bank and bemoan his luck. "All those ripe melons," said he, "and nobody to eat them but men. It is really a shame. I don't know what Providence is doing, to treat me so scurvily." Perhaps Providence knew what it was about, and the Jackal, as you shall hear, deserved no better than he got. As he sat one day by the river, moaning and groaning, a big Tortoise popped up his funny head out of the water. There was a big tear in each of the Tortoise's round eyes. The Jackal stopped moaning and groaning when he saw the Tortoise. "What's the matter, Shelly?" said he. "Aren't you well?" "Quite well, thank you," said the Tortoise, and the tears slowly rolled down his nose. He was going to call the Jackal Snarly, which was the nickname the Jackal went by; but he thought better of it, because it would have been rather rude. All the same, he did not like being called Shelly in that offhand way. "Wife and brats all right?" asked the Jackal. "No measles or mumps?" This was also very rude of the Jackal, because a Tortoise is sensitive about mumps. If he gets mumps when his head is inside his shell, he can't put it out; and if his head is outside, that is still worse, for it swells up so that he can't get it in again. "No, thank you, my wife is all right," said the Tortoise, who was rather confused; "at least, she would be all right if I had one, but that's just it--I can't get a wife! Nobody will look at me! and that is my trouble," and two more big tears trickled down his nose. At this moment an idea came into the Jackal's crafty head. "What a pity you didn't tell me before," said he; "I could easily have found you a wife last week, but now she has gone to live on the other side of the river." "Do you really mean it?" said the Tortoise. "Honour bright," answered the Jackal; "do I look like a person who would tell a lie?" He certainly did, only the Tortoise was too simple to see it. The Tortoise rubbed away his tears on a stump, for he had no handkerchief, and brightened up considerably. "I can carry you across, friend," said he, "if you will jump on my back." The Jackal wanted nothing better, so down he jumped on the back of the Tortoise, and the Tortoise swam across. When they got across, the Tortoise was quite tired, because the Jackal was very heavy for a Tortoise to carry. A fine time the Jackal had on the further side of the river. He ran about among the fields, and ate melons till he was nearly bursting. Every day the Tortoise came to the bank, asking whether the match was yet arranged, and every day the Jackal told him that all was going well. "You have no notion how pleased they are," said the Jackal. "Just see how fat I am getting. They feed me like a fighting-cock, all because of you." It was indeed because of the Tortoise that the Jackal was so well fed, but not as he meant it. By-and-by the season of melons came to an end, and all that the Jackal had left were cut and sold in the market. Melons were dear that season, because the Jackal had eaten so many of them before they could be cut. Then the Jackal stole a white dress and a veil, and hung them on the stump of a tree which stood near the river side; and next day, when the Tortoise popped his funny head out of the water, said the Jackal-- "There's your wife at last, old Shelly! There she stands, dumb as a stone. Not a word will she have to say to you till I am out of the way, because she is too modest. Come, hurry up, Shell-fish, and take me across." The Tortoise was angry at being called a shell-fish, because tortoises are not fish at all, and they feel insulted if you call them so. However, he was so glad to get a wife at last, that he said nothing, only presented his back for the Jackal to jump on. Flop! came the Jackal, so heavy by this time that it was all the Tortoise could do to get him across safely. If he was tired before, he was nearly dead now. But he swam across at last; and the Jackal ran off into the forest, chuckling at the simplicity of the poor Tortoise. Back went our Tortoise across the river, and climbed up on the bank. "Wife!" he called out, in a tender voice. No answer. Again he called "Wife!" but still no answer. He could not make it out a bit. He crawled up to the stump which the Jackal had decked out in wedding finery, and put out his flapper to touch his wife's hand: lo and behold, it was only an old tree-stump. The rage of the Tortoise knew no bounds, and he determined to have his revenge. Next day the Jackal came down to drink at the river. The Tortoise was watching for him under water; and while the Jackal was drinking, the Tortoise nipped his teeth into the Jackal's leg. How the Jackal did howl, to be sure! He was a great coward, and even used to cry when his teeth were pulled out by the dentist. So now he howled at the top of his voice, "Let me go! Let me go!" But the Tortoise held on like grim death. He was too weak to pull the Jackal under, but he was too heavy for the Jackal to pull out; so there he bides his time. By-and-by the tide began to rise. The tide rose to the Jackal's middle, it rose to his head; and his last howls came up from underneath the water in big bubbles, which showed that the crafty Jackal would play his mean tricks never more.