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Grace |
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aesop revised by archy
a wolf met a spring lamb drinking at a stream and said to her you are the lamb that muddied this stream all last year so that i could not get a clean fresh drink i am resolved that this outrage shall not be enacted again this season i am going to kill you just a moment said the lamb i was not born last year so it could not have been i the wolf then pulled a number of other arguments as to why the lamb should die but in each case the lamb pretty innocent that she was easily proved herself guiltless well well said the wolf enough of argument you are right and i am wrong but i am going to eat you anyhow because i am hungry stop exclamation point cried a human voice and a man came over the slope of the ravine vile lupine marauder you shall not kill that beautiful and innocent lamb for i shall save her exit the wolf left upper entrance snarling poor little lamb continued our human hero sweet tender little thing it is well that i appeared just when i did it makes my blood boil to think of the fright to which you have been subjected in another moment i would have been too late come home with me and the lamb frolicked about her new found friend gamboling as to the sound of a wordsworthian tabor and leaping for joy as if propelled by a stanza from william blake these vile and bloody wolves went on our hero in honest indignation they must be cleared out of the country the meads must be made safe for sheepocracy and so jollying her along with the usual human hokum he led her to his home and the son of a gun did not even blush when they passed the mint bed gently he cut her throat all the while inveighing against the inhuman wolf and tenderly he cooked her and lovingly he sauced her and meltingly he ate her and piously he said a grace thanking his gods for their bountiful gifts to him and after dinner he sat with his pipe before the fire meditating on the brutality of wolves and the injustice of the universe which allows them to harry poor innocent lambs and wondering if he had not better write to the papers for as he said for god s sake can t something be done about it
archy
"archy and mehitabel" by don marquis
dolphin books doubleday & company, inc.
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