Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/131

Rh with a song. She complies, and sings her sweetest. The other birds come and listen, but the donkey shakes his head and says, "Your voice is very fair, but you should take lessons of the village cock." The moral may be thus rendered in English:

Another fable tells how the swan, the crab, and the pike agreed to draw a load; but when the time came for the effort the pike dived into the water, the swan new into the air, while the crab went backward after the manner of his kind. At the end Kriloff says,

The fable of "The Two Boys" tells how two youths are trying to get at some nuts in a tree, but the limbs are beyond their reach. One suggests that he will climb up on the back of the other, and then can gather nuts for both; but as soon as he is seated among the limbs he falls to eating the nuts at his leisure, and throws only the shells to his companion. The moral is obvious, and Kriloff adds that he has known men thus raised to profitable positions who had not the grace to throw even the shells to those who had assisted them.

In the fable of "The Pike," that voracious fish has been killing his inoffensive neighbors in the pond. He is taken in a tub of water and carried before the court for judgment. The court is composed of two donkeys and two goats, who grazed on the banks of the pond; and in order to make their decision an intelligent one, a skilful lawyer, the fox, is added to the court. People said that the fox was always plentifully supplied with fish, the pike giving him all he wanted.

The proof was overwhelming, and the judges decided that the pike must be hanged. "Oh, hanging's too good for him," said the fox, "give him something more severe; let the wretch be drowned."

"Certainly," exclaimed the judges; and thereupon the pike was thrown into the pond again.

In "The Fox and the Marmot," the fox complains to the marmot that he has been driven out of a poultry-yard which he had undertaken to protect. "It was a wretched place," says the fox; "I was awake all night; and even in the daytime I had hardly time to eat a mouthful.