Читать книгу Types of Prose Narratives - Harriott Ely Fansler - Страница 61

In olden times, when men lived to be two or three hundred years old, there dwelt a very poor family near a big forest. The household had but three members—a grandfather, a father, and a son. The grandfather was an old man of one hundred and twenty-five years. He was so old that the help of his housemates was needed to feed him. Many a time, and especially after meals, he related to his son and to his grandson his brave deeds while serving in the king's army, the responsible positions he filled after leaving a soldier's life; and he told entertaining stories of hundreds of years gone by. The father was not satisfied with the arrangement, however, and planned to get rid of the old man.

One day he said to his son, "At present, I am receiving a peso daily, but half of it is spent to feed your worthless grandfather. We do not get any real benefit from him. To-morrow let us bind him and take him to the woods, and leave him there to die."

"Yes, father," said the boy.

When the morning came, they bound the old man and took him to the forest. On their way home the boy said to his father, "Wait, I will go back, and get the rope." "What for?" asked his father, raising his voice. "To have it ready when your turn comes," replied the boy, believing that to cast every old man into the forest was the usual custom. "Ah! if that is likely to be the case with me, back we go, and get your grandfather again."

—Eutiquiano Garcia.