This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
The Dog and the Sparrow

a butcher’s shop, the Sparrow said to the Dog, ‘Stay where you are out there and I will peck down a piece of meat.’ He perched upon the stall, and looked about to see that he was not noticed; then he pecked, pulled, and pushed a piece of meat lying near the edge, till at last it fell to the ground. The Dog seized it and ran off with it to a corner, where he devoured it. Then the Sparrow said to him, ‘Now come with me to another shop, and I will pull down another piece so that you may have enough.’

When the Dog had gobbled up the second piece of meat, the Sparrow said, ‘Brother Dog, have you had enough?’

‘Yes, I have had enough meat,’ replied the Dog; “but I haven’t had any bread.’

‘Oh, you shall have some bread too,’ said the Sparrow. ‘Come with me.’ And then he led him to a baker’s shop, where he pecked at a couple of rolls till they fell down. Then, as the Dog still wanted more, he took him to another shop where he pulled down some more bread.

When that was consumed, the Sparrow said, ‘Brother Dog, is your hunger satisfied?’

‘Yes,’ he answered; ‘now let us go and walk about outside the town for a bit.’

So they both went out on to the high-road. Now it was very warm weather, and when they had walked. a little way the Dog said, ‘I am tired, and I want to go to sleep.’

‘Oh, by all means,’ answered the Sparrow; ‘I will sit upon this branch in the meantime.’

So the Dog lay down upon the road and fell fast asleep. While he lay there sleeping, a Carter came along driving a wagon with three horses. The wagon was laden with two casks of wine. The Sparrow saw that he was not going to turn aside, but was going on in the track in which the Dog lay, and he called out, ‘Carter, don’t do it, or I will ruin you!’

But the Carter grumbled to himself, ‘You won’t ruin me,’ cracked his whip, and drove the wheels of his wagon right over the Dog and killed him.

37