ittle crab's pleasure to go out
day by day and sit in the sun and put out his long eyes in the same way
as a snail puts out its horn, and watch the persimmons ripening to
perfection.

"How delicious they will be to eat!" he said to himself.

At last, one day, he knew the persimmons must be quite ripe and he
wanted very much to taste one. He made several attempts to climb the
tree, in the vain hope of reaching one of the beautiful persimmons
hanging above him; but he failed each time, for a crab's legs are not
made for climbing trees but only for running along the ground and over
stones, both of which he can do most cleverly. In his dilemma he
thought of his old playmate the monkey, who, he knew, could climb trees
better than any one else in the world. He determined to ask the monkey
to help him, and set out to find him.

Running crab-fashion up the stony river bank, over the pathways into
the shadowy forest, the crab at last found the monkey taking an
afternoon nap in his favorite pine-tree, with his tail curled tight
around a branch to prevent him from falling off in his dreams. He was
soon wide awake, however, when he heard himself called, and eagerly
listening to what the crab told him. When he heard that the seed which
he had long ago exchanged for a rice-dumpling had grown into a tree and
was now bearing good fruit, he was delighted, for he at once devised a
cunning plan which would give him all the persimmons for himself.

He consented to go with the crab to pick the fruit for him. When they
both reached the spot, the monkey was astonished to see what a fine
tree had sprung from the seed, and with what a number of ripe
persimmons the branches were loaded.

He quickly climbed the tree and began to pluck and eat, as fast as he
could, one persimmon after another. Each time he chose the best and
ripest he could find, and went on eating till he could eat no more. Not
one would he give to the poor hungry crab waiting below, and when he
had finished there was little but the hard, unripe fruit left.

You can imagine the feelings of the poor crab after waiting patiently,
for so long as he had done, for the tree to grow and the fruit to
ripen, when he saw the monkey devouring all the good persimmons. He was
so disappointed that he ran round and round the tree calling to the
monkey to remember his promise. The monkey at first took no notice of
the crab's complaints, but at last he picked out the hardest, greenest
pers