l upon a rock. It will be smashed then sure
enough, and you can eat it at your leisure."

The simple-minded and unsuspecting Crow did as he was told, flew up and
let the Mussel fall.

Before he could descend to eat it, however, the other bird had pounced
upon it and carried it away.

The Ass and His Purchaser

A Man wished to purchase an Ass, and agreed with his owner that he
should try him before he bought him. He took the Ass home, and put him
in the straw-yard with his other asses, upon which the beast left all
the others and joined himself at once to the most idle and the greatest
eater of them all.

The Man put a halter on him, and led him back to his owner: and when he
was asked how, in so short a time, he could have made a trial of him,
"I do not need," he answered, "a trial; I know that he will be just
such another as the one whom of all the rest he chose for his
companion."

A Country Fellow and the River

A stupid Boy, who was sent to market by the good old woman, his Mother,
to sell butter and cheese, made a stop by the way at a swift river, and
laid himself down on the bank there, until it should run out.

About midnight, home he went to his Mother, with all his market trade
back again.

"Why, how now, my Son?" said she. "What ill fortune have you had, that
you have sold nothing all day?"

"Why, Mother, yonder is a river that has been running all this day, and
I stayed till just now, waiting for it to run out; and there it is,
running still."

"My Son," said the good woman, "thy head and mine will be laid in the
grave many a day before this river has all run by. You will never sell
your butter and cheese if you wait for that."

The Playful Ass

An Ass climbed up to the roof of a building and, frisking about there,
broke in the tiling. His Master went up after him, and quickly drove
him down, beating him severely with a thick wooden cudgel.

The Ass then cried out in astonishment, "Why, I saw the monkey do this
very thing yesterday, and you all laughed heartily, as if it afforded
you great amusement!"

The Boys and the Frogs

Some idle boys, playing near a pond, saw a number of Frogs in the
water, and began to pelt them with stones. They had killed several of
them, when one of the Frogs, lifting his head out of the water, cried
out: "Pray stop, my Boys: you forget that what is sport to you is death
to us!"

The Camel and His Master

One night a Camel looked