JUPITER ISSUED a proclamation to all the beasts of the forest and
promised a royal reward to the one whose offspring should be
deemed the handsomest. The Monkey came with the rest and
presented, with all a mother's tenderness, a flat-nosed,
hairless, ill-featured young Monkey as a candidate for the
promised reward. A general laugh saluted her on the presentation
of her son. She resolutely said, "I know not whether Jupiter
will allot the prize to my son, but this I do know, that he is at
least in the eyes of me his mother, the dearest, handsomest, and
most beautiful of all."


The Widow and Her Little Maidens

A WIDOW who was fond of cleaning had two little maidens to wait
on her. She was in the habit of waking them early in the
morning, at cockcrow. The maidens, aggravated by such excessive
labor, resolved to kill the cock who roused their mistress so
early. When they had done this, they found that they had only
prepared for themselves greater troubles, for their mistress, no
longer hearing the hour from the cock, woke them up to their work
in the middle of the night.


The Shepherd's Boy and the Wolf

A SHEPHERD-BOY, who watched a flock of sheep near a village,
brought out the villagers three or four times by crying out,
"Wolf! Wolf!" and when his neighbors came to help him, laughed at
them for their pains. The Wolf, however, did truly come at last.