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Group Three
21 The tortoise
22 A thin reed survives
23 The lion and the mouse
24 The goat and the lion
25 The mother lion
26 The donkey's shadow
27 The dove and the ant
28 The greedy boy's hand
29 The greedy woman
30 The tricky donkey
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30. The Tricky Donkey Gets Tricked
A groceryman once bought some salt
And piled it on his donkey's back,
Then started on the long trek home
Along a slippery river track.
The bags of salt were piled up
high
And felt just like a tone of
stones
Or blocks of granite, clay or
lead
To that poor donkey's aching
bones.
Then WHOOPS! his feet slipped! Down he fell
Into the river swirling there,
And all the salt dissolved away--
Which made his load a breeze to bear.
Next day, again the donkey
slipped,
This time on purpose, thought
the man,
And once again the salt
dissolved!
So that smart grocer made a
plan.
He loaded Donkey's aching back
With sponges, piled up high like bricks.
When they got wet, they weighed a ton,
And that cured Donkey of his tricks.
MORAL: Don't try the same trick too many times.
from the book Prayers and Fables and the forthcoming book Aesop's Best: 80 Fables in Verse by William Cleary
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