The Fox and the Geese

The Fox one day came to a meadow where a flock of fine fat Geese were feeding; and he said, with a grin, “I am come just as if I had been invited; you sit together so charmingly, I can eat you one after the other!” The Geese cackled for terror, and sprang on their feet, and began to groan and beg pitifully for their lives, but the Fox would hear nothing; and said, “There is no mercy—you must die!” At length one of them took heart and said, “If we poor Geese must at once give our young lives, show us yet one single grace, and permit us to say our prayers, that we may not die in our sins. Afterwards we will all stand in a row, and you can then pick out the fattest as you want us.”

“Well,” said the Fox, “that is a just and pious request. Pray away! I will wait for you!”

So the first one began a long prayer, and, because it would not cease, the second also commenced before his time and cried, “Ga! ga! ga!” The third and fourth soon followed, and in a few minutes they were all cackling together their prayers.

When they have done praying, this tale shall be continued; but meanwhile, as I suppose, they are praying still.