The Jackal and the Pea-hen

Once upon a time a Jackal and a Pea-hen swore eternal friendship.

Every day they had their meals together, and spent hours in pleasant

conversation.

Now, one day, the Pea-hen had juicy plums for dinner, and the Jackal,

for his part, had as juicy a young kid; so they enjoyed themselves

immensely. But when the feast was over, the Pea-hen rose gravely,

and, after scratching up the ground, carefully sowed all the

plum-stones in a row.

'It is my custom to do so when I eat plums,' she said, with quite an

aggravating air of complacent virtue; 'my mother, good creature,

brought me up in excellent habits, and with her dying breath bade me

never be wasteful. Now these stones will grow into trees, the fruit

of which, even if I do not live to see the day, will afford a meal to

many a hungry peacock.'

These words made the Jackal feel rather mean, so he answered loftily,

'Exactly so! I always plant my bones for the same reason.' And he

carefully dug up a piece of ground, and sowed the bones of the kid at

intervals.

After this, the pair used to come every day and look at their gardens;

by and by the plum-stones shot into tender green stems, but the bones

made never a sign.

'Bones do take a long time germinating,' remarked the Jackal,

pretending to be quite at his ease; 'I have known them remain

unchanged in the ground for months.'

'My dear sir,' answered the Pea-hen, with ill-concealed irony,

'_I_ have known them remain so for _years_!'

So time passed on, and every day, when they visited the garden, the

self-complacent Pea-hen became more and more sarcastic, the Jackal

more and more savage.

At last the plum-trees blossomed and bore fruit, and the Pea-hen sat

down to a perfect feast of ripe juicy plums.

'He! he!' sniggered she to the Jackal, who, having been unsuccessful

in hunting that day, stood by dinnerless, hungry, and in consequence

very cross; 'what a time those old bones of yours do take in coming

up! But when they do, my! what a crop you'll have!'

The Jackal was bursting with rage, but she wouldn't take warning, and

went on: 'Poor dear! you do look hungry! There seems some chance of

your starving before harvest. What a pity it is you can't eat plums

in the meantime!'

'If I can't eat plums, I can eat the plum-eater!' quoth the Jackal;

and with that he pounced on the Pea-hen, and gobbled her up.

_Moral_--It is never safe to be wiser than one's friends.