Читать книгу Gobble-Up Stories - Oscar Mandel - Страница 14

THE FARMER, HIS SON, AND HIS MULE

A farmer had loaded two sacks of potatoes on his mule and gone to the market-town, accompanied by his little son. After selling the potatoes, feeding the mule, and stopping at a tavern with his boy for a loaf of bread and cheese and a mug of ale, he spoke as follows: “Son, the road home is a long one. As I’m feelin’ my age and a heaviness in my head, I’ll ride our Meg till we reach the little stone bridge. By that time I’ll be my chipper self again, we’ll change places, and it’ll be your turn to ride old Meg as far as the roadside chapel to Our Lady. That’s where we’ll reward her for carrying our potatoes and you and me, and give her leave to trot home easy on her own.”

The lad happily agreed, and so, I think, did the mule, who had her own way, after so many years spent together, of understanding her master. Off they went, with the farmer astride the mule and singing a ditty, and the boy walking at his side, now hopping on one foot, now on the other. Presently they came across a philosopher and his disciples who were going toward the town for a convention of sages. The farmer raised his hat to them, gave them a cheerful word, and rode on. The philosopher didn’t reply, but he turned around to watch the threesome ambling on their way. After they were out of earshot, he said to his disciples, who had, of course, turned around with him: “The older, the more selfish. Proof? The gross father, smelling of cheap beer, takes his ease; the delicate child is left to fend for himself. Let the poor boy stumble! Let his feet bleed! The old codger is comfortable, so he no longer cares if the rest of the world, including wife, children, and mules, goes to the devil.”

Upon reaching the little stone bridge, the farmer said to his son: “Your turn, my boy!” He lifted his son onto the back of the mule, and off they went again, the farmer singing another ditty and the lad and the mule beginning to dream of supper.

After an hour or so, they met another philosopher on his way to the sages’ convention. This one was alone, muttering aphorisms to himself. The farmer raised his hat, gave his how-d’you-do again and walked on without noticing that the philosopher had turned around to watch the little group. The sage took out a notepad and scribbled: “The world, I repeat, is topsy-turvy. The child rides the mule, the old man trudges on foot. Mark my words: soon the man will be carrying the mule on his shoulders.”

After reaching the chapel, where the humans crossed themselves and the mule saluted with a pious nod, the farmer said, “All right now, Meg has been a good girl; let’s set her free. We’ll walk on our four feet each side o’ her and try to reach home before sunset.”

Off they went again, with the mule braying contentedly, the farmer singing, and the boy hopping now on one foot and now on the other.

They were nearing home when they crossed the path of two more philosophers on their way to the convention. The farmer raised his hat again, and again the philosophers turned around to watch the little family down the road and away. “Folly,” said the older philosopher to the younger one, “folly wins out; it is congenital in mankind and education cannot root it out. Two supposedly rational creatures walk alongside a mule, and to neither, it seems, does the idea occur that one of them, or both, could ride the beast.”

“One does despair at last, does one not,” his colleague sighed.

At suppertime on the farm that evening, the boy asked his father, “Dad, who was all them fine folk you raised your hat to so polite-like?”

“They are philosophers, my son,” replied the farmer.

“What are philosophers?” asked the boy.

“They are folk who understand things which the likes of us won’t never fathom, and that’s why, when I pass them on the road, I raise my hat, and so must you, my boy, when you grow old enough to wear one.”