232.The Man, the Boy, and the Donkey
A MAN and his son were once going with their Donkey to market. As they were walking along by its side a countryman passed them and said: “You fools, what is a Donkey for but to ride upon?”
So the Man put the Boy on the Donkey and they went on their way. But soon they passed a group of men, one of whom said: “See that lazy youngster, he lets his father walk while he rides.”
So the Man ordered his Boy to get off, and got on himself. But they hadn’t gone far when they passed two women, one of whom said to the other: “Shame on that lazy lout to let his poor little son trudge along.”
Well, the Man didn’t know what to do, but at last he took his Boy up before him on the Donkey. By this time they had come to the town, and the passers-by began to jeer and point at them. The Man stopped and asked what they were scoffing at. The men said: “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself for overloading that poor Donkey of yours—you and your hulking son?”
The Man and Boy got off and tried to think what to do. They thought and they thought, till at last they cut down a pole, tied the Donkey’s feet to it, and raised the pole and the Donkey to their shoulders. They went along amid the laughter of all who met them till they came to Market Bridge, when the Donkey, getting one of his feet loose, kicked out and caused the Boy to drop his end of the pole. In the struggle the Donkey fell over the bridge, and his fore-feet being tied together he was drowned.
“That will teach you,” said an old man who had followed them:
“PLEASE ALL, AND YOU WILL PLEASE NONE.”
231.The Man Who Promised the Impossible
A POOR man was very ill, and not expected to live. As the doctors were about to give up hope for him, he appealed to the Lords, promising to offer up to them a hundred oxen or less – and more gifts too – if only he recovered.
The man’s wife, who was at his side, asked him:
“And where are you going to get the money to pay for all that?”
The man told her:
“Do you think I might get better so that the Lords can call me to account?”
❖ Men readily make promises which in reality they have no intention of keeping.
230.The Man Bitten by a Dog
A MAN who had been bitten by a dog went about in quest of someone who might heal him. A friend, meeting him and learning what he wanted, said,
“If you would be cured, take a piece of bread, and dip it in the blood from your wound, and go and give it to the dog that bit you.”
The man who had been bitten laughed at this advice and said,
“Why? If I should do so, it would be as if I should beg every dog in the town to bite me.”
❖ Benefits bestowed on the evil-disposed increase their means of injuring you.
229.The Man and the Wood
A MAN came into a forest and asked the trees to provide him a handle for his axe. The trees agreed to his request and gave him a young ash-tree. No sooner had the man fitted a new handle to his axe from it, than he began to use it and quickly felled with his strokes the noblest giants of the forest.
An old oak, lamenting when too late the destruction of his companions, said to a neighbouring cedar,
“The first step has lost us all. If we had not given up the rights of the ash, we might yet have retained our own privileges and have stood for ages.”
❖ Do not give your enemy the means of destroying you.
❖ Show enough concern in the seemingly innocent little things.
❖ Give some people an inch and they will take a mile.
❖ Nourishing of others needs to be seen in a wide perspective.
