Page:Chinese Fables and Folk Stories.djvu/24

20 "Now, friends, can you not see that this place and this food all belongs to the Master? We eat the food and go wherever we like. We take your food only after you have finished. It would spoil on the ground if we did not do this.

"Answer this question—Do our people ever hurt your people? No; even though every year some of our children are killed by bad oxen and cows.

"What is your food? It is nothing; but our lives are worth much to us.

"Our Master never sends our people to work as he does the horses and oxen. He sends us food and allows us to play a year and a year the same, because he likes us best.

"You see the horses and oxen are always at work. Some pull wagons, others plow land for rice; and they must work—sick or well.

"Our people never work. Every day at happy time we play; and do you see how fat we are?

"You never see our bones. Look at the old horses and the old oxen. Twenty years' work and no rest!

"I tell you the Master does not honor the horses and oxen as he does the pigs.

"Friends, that is all I have to say. Have you any questions to ask? Is what I have said not the truth?"