Gobble-Up Stories - Oscar Mandel

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THE FARMER, HIS SON, AND HIS MULE

      A farmer had loaded two sacks of potatoes on his mule and gone to the market-town, accompanied by his little son. After selling the potatoes, feeding the mule, and stopping at a tavern with his boy for a loaf of bread and cheese and a mug of ale, he spoke as follows: “Son, the road home is a long one. As I’m feelin’ my age and a heaviness in my head, I’ll ride our Meg till we reach the little stone bridge. By that time I’ll be my chipper self again, we’ll change places, and it’ll be your turn to ride old Meg as far as the roadside chapel to Our Lady. That’s where we’ll reward her for carrying our potatoes and you and me, and give her leave to trot home easy on her own.”

      The lad happily agreed, and so, I think, did the mule, who had her own way, after so many years spent together, of understanding her master. Off they went, with the farmer astride the mule and singing a ditty, and the boy walking at his side, now hopping on one foot, now on the other. Presently they came across a philosopher and his disciples who were going toward the town for a convention of sages. The farmer raised his hat to them, gave them a cheerful word, and rode on. The philosopher didn’t reply, but he turned around to watch the threesome ambling on their way. After they were out of earshot, he said to his disciples, who had, of course, turned around with him: “The older, the more selfish. Proof? The gross father, smelling of cheap beer, takes his ease; the delicate child is left to fend for himself. Let the poor boy stumble! Let his feet bleed! The old codger is comfortable, so he no longer cares if the rest of the world, including wife, children, and mules, goes to the devil.”

      Upon reaching the little stone bridge, the farmer said to his son: “Your turn, my boy!” He lifted his son onto the back of the mule, and off they went again, the farmer singing another ditty and the lad and the mule beginning to dream of supper.

      After an hour or so, they met another philosopher on his way to the sages’ convention. This one was alone, muttering aphorisms to himself. The farmer raised his hat, gave his how-d’you-do again and walked on without noticing that the philosopher had turned around to watch the little group. The sage took out a notepad and scribbled: “The world, I repeat, is topsy-turvy. The child rides the mule, the old man trudges on foot. Mark my words: soon the man will be carrying the mule on his shoulders.”

      After reaching the chapel, where the humans crossed themselves and the mule saluted with a pious nod, the farmer said, “All right now, Meg has been a good girl; let’s set her free. We’ll walk on our four feet each side o’ her and try to reach home before sunset.”

      Off they went again, with the mule braying contentedly, the farmer singing, and the boy hopping now on one foot and now on the other.

      They were nearing home when they crossed the path of two more philosophers on their way to the convention. The farmer raised his hat again, and again the philosophers turned around to watch the little family down the road and away. “Folly,” said the older philosopher to the younger one, “folly wins out; it is congenital in mankind and education cannot root it out. Two supposedly rational creatures walk alongside a mule, and to neither, it seems, does the idea occur that one of them, or both, could ride the beast.”

      “One does despair at last, does one not,” his colleague sighed.

      At suppertime on the farm that evening, the boy asked his father, “Dad, who was all them fine folk you raised your hat to so polite-like?”

      “They are philosophers, my son,” replied the farmer.

      “What are philosophers?” asked the boy.

      “They are folk who understand things which the likes of us won’t never fathom, and that’s why, when I pass them on the road, I raise my hat, and so must you, my boy, when you grow old enough to wear one.”

      The hippopotamus was delighted. “What are you delighted about?” asked his best friend, the crocodile, who could not bear to see him so happy.

      “Why,” said the hippopotamus, “when the lion spoke to us last night on behalf of the pension for retired lions, he smiled at me and said in the hearing of all present: ‘Without Handsome Hippo’s assistance, I am powerless here.’ ”

      “Ha!” sneered the crocodile. “I hate to disillusion you, my dear friend, but you make me laugh. Handsome Hippo! Are you truly taken in by this obvious piece of flattery?”

      “No, I am not,” answered the hippopotamus. “I am not flattered by what the lion said; but I am flattered to be the one he chose to flatter.”

      I despise you.” So said the dog to the flea as he lifted his indignant rear leg to scratch his flank. “You parasite,” he added.

      The flea happened to be a reasoner. “You call me a parasite,” he squeaked from behind a tuft of bristles which the dog could not reach, “but don’t you live off rabbits, don’t cats live off mice, don’t people live off chickens, don’t lions live off zebras? Why does everybody hate us so?”

      Unfortunately, the dog was a reasoner too. “We despise you,” he said, “because you live off those who are bigger and stronger than yourself; that makes you a parasite. We live off those who are smaller and weaker than us; that makes us normal.”

      What could the flea reply? Rules are made by rulers, and those who bother the rulers must not expect to be called by pretty names.

      One hand, they say, washes the other.

      A crow was sitting on a branch with a piece of cheese in his bill when a hungry fox, drawn by the smell, stopped under the tree and spoke as follows: “Master Crow, I find you at last! How often your voice has brought down my tears when I heard it in the distance through the foliage! I beg you, sing a ditty for me now, so that I may taste, savor, and relish!”

      This was an irresistible speech. The crow opened his beak, dropped the cheese, and cawed his creaky uttermost, high, middle, and low. “Enchanting!” cried the fox, who didn’t like to make enemies, “but, oh dear, what is this?”

      “It’s a cheese I was about—” the crow began to answer, but the fox broke in passionately with, “A cheese? So it is. A vile Golgondola! It must not, it shall not beslobber your windpipe!” And picking it up with all his teeth, he gulped it down in a wink. “There,” he said, “I have removed the temptation. Your voice is saved.”

      The crow thanked the fox, the fox thanked the crow, and they parted company in high spirits both. And why not? The fox had won a luscious cheese, the crow a glowing compliment, and neither is easy to come by in this world.

      Above all the salesmen working for him, the President of the company loved and prized a man whose name was Hank. Hank had eyes that made the ladies dream of naughty adventures in ancient Persia. Beneath his comely nose, a long black moustache pointed to the right and the left like a pair of wings. His hair was curly and neatly trimmed around his attentive ears, his cheekbones looked like small ruddy apples, and his arms seemed to have been forged to carry the helpless out of fire-swept buildings.

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