The Animal Tales! • The Third of Several Fables

3. One Bad Apple

A fable that follows: Where Luck Goes!

“Disgusting!” said the Magpie, riding atop the pig’s back. “Why would anyone want to eat chicken!” “Snort,” answered the pig. “Why,” said the Magpie, “if I weren’t so smart, I’d be a chicken too. Barbaric! Imagine eating me! And look at you eating those muddy apples! Who wants a muddy apple? Yuck!” And that was when the magpie pointed to all the shiny red apples at the top of the nearby apple tree. “Look!” said the magpie. “All you have to do is walk onto the roof of that shed and you can have as many shiny apples as you want!”

“Snort!” It was true! The pig wanted those apples! The pig climbed the barrels stacked next to the shed but with his very first cloven step on the tin roof, down he slid! Just as the pig was about tumble from the roof to the ground, he wrapped his tail round the lowest apple branch. And there he hung and hung. The animals came and went. “Such an ugly apple!” they said. “Like a peach with hooves!” said others. “It shall not be a good year for apples,” said the farmer’s wife. “Snort! Squeal! Snort!” squealed the pig. At last the branch broke and the pig landed on its nose, flat from that day forth; and its poor tail never uncurled. The lesson was all too clear.

“You can always shine a muddy apple.”

Be it known that this fable is followed by: A Pig Out of Mud: The Fourth of Several Fables!