Collected Fables

by James Thurber

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  Fables for Our Time

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  This book’s original dedication read, “For Herman and Dorothy.”

  The Mouse Who Went to the Country

  ONCE UPON A SUNDAY there was a city mouse who went to visit a country mouse. He hid away on a train the country mouse had told him to take, only to find that on Sundays it did not stop at Beddington. Hence the city mouse could not get off at Beddington and catch a bus for Sibert’s Junction, where he was to be met by the country mouse. The city mouse, in fact, was carried on to Middleburg, where he waited three hours for a train to take him back. When he got back to Beddington he found that the last bus for Sibert’s Junction had just left, so he ran and he ran and he ran and he finally caught the bus and crept aboard, only to find that it was not the bus for Sibert’s Junction at all, but was going in the opposite direction through Pell’s Hollow and Grumm to a place called Wimberby. When the bus finally stopped, the city mouse got out into a heavy rain and found that there were no more buses that night going anywhere. “To the hell with it,” said the city mouse, and he walked back to the city.

  MORAL: Stay where you are, you’re sitting pretty.

  The Little Girl and the Wolf

  ONE AFTERNOON a big wolf waited in a dark forest for a little girl to come along carrying a basket of food to her grandmother. Finally a little girl did come along and she was carrying a basket of food. “Are you carrying that basket to your grandmother?” asked the wolf. The little girl said yes, she was. So the wolf asked her where her grandmother lived and the little girl told him and he disappeared into the wood.

  When the little girl opened the door of her grandmother’s house she saw that there was somebody in bed with a nightcap and nightgown on. She had approached no nearer than twenty-five feet from the bed when she saw that it was not her grandmother but the wolf, for even in a nightcap a wolf does not look any more like your grandmother than the Metro-Goldwyn lion looks like Calvin Coolidge. So the little girl took an automatic out of her basket and shot the wolf dead.

  MORAL: It is not so easy to fool little girls nowadays as it used to be.

  The Two Turkeys

  ONCE UPON A TIME there were two turkeys, an old turkey and a young turkey. The old turkey had been cock of the walk for many years and the young turkey wanted to take his place. “I’ll knock that old buzzard cold one of these days,” the young turkey told his friends. “Sure you will, Joe, sure you will,” his friends said, for Joe was treating them to some corn he had found. Then the friends went and told the old turkey what the young turkey had said. “Why, I’ll have his gizzard!” said the old turkey, setting out some corn for his visitors. “Sure you will, Doc, sure you will,” said the visitors.

  One day the young turkey walked over to where the old turkey was telling tales of his prowess in battle. “I’ll bat your teeth into your crop,” said the young turkey. “You and who else?” said the old turkey. So they began to circle around each other, sparring for an opening. Just then the farmer who owned the turkeys swept up the young one and carried him off and wrung his neck.

  MORAL: Youth will be served, frequently stuffed with chestnuts.

  The Tiger Who Understood People

  ONCE UPON A TIME there was a tiger who escaped from a zoo in the United States and made his way back to the jungle. During his captivity the tiger had learned a great deal about how men do things and he thought he would apply their methods to life in the jungle. The first day he was home he met a leopard and he said, “There’s no use in you and me hunting for food; we’ll make the other animals bring it to us.” “How will we do that?” asked the leopard. “Easy,” said the tiger, “you and I will tell everybody that we are going to put on a fight and that every animal will have to bring a freshly killed boar in order to get in and see the fight. Then we will just spar around and not hurt each other. Later you can say you broke a bone in your paw during the second round and I will say I broke a bone in my paw during the first round. Then we will announce a return engagement and they’ll have to bring us more wild boars.” “I don’t think this will work,” said the leopard. “Oh, yes it will,” said the tiger. “You just go around saying that you can’t help winning because I am a big palooka and I will go around saying I can’t lose because you are a big palooka, and everybody will want to come and see the fight.”

  So the leopard went around telling everybody that he couldn’t help winning because the tiger was a big palooka and the tiger went around telling everybody he couldn’t lose because the leopard was a big palooka. The night of the fight came and the tiger and the leopard were very hungry because they hadn’t gone out and done any hunting at all; they wanted to get the fight over as soon as possible and eat some of the freshly killed wild boars which all the animals would bring to the fight. But when the hour of the combat came none of the animals at all showed up. “The way I look at it,” a fox had told them, “is this: if the leopard can’t help winning and the tiger can’t lose, it will be a draw and a draw is a very dull thing to watch, particularly when fought by fighters who are both big palookas.” The animals all saw the logic of this and stayed away from the arena. When it got to be midnight and it was obvious that none of the animals would appear and that there wouldn’t be any wild-boar meat to devour, the tiger and the leopard fell upon each other in a rage. They were both injured so badly and they were both so worn out by hunger that a couple of wild boars who came wandering along attacked them and killed them easily.

  MORAL: If you live as humans do, it will be the end of you.

  The Fairly Intelligent Fly

  A LARGE SPIDER in an old house built a beautiful web in which to catch flies. Every time a fly landed on the web and was entangled in it the spider devoured him, so that when another fly came along he would think the web was a safe and quiet place in which to rest. One day a fairly intelligent fly buzzed around above the web so long without lighting that the spider appeared and said, “Come on down.” But the fly was too clever for him and said, “I never light where I don’t see other flies and I don’t see any other flies in your house.” So he flew away until he came to a place where there were a great many other flies. He was about to settle down among them when a bee buzzed up and said, “Hold it, stupid, that’s flypaper. All those flies are trapped.” “Don’t be silly,” said the fly, “they’re dancing.” So he settled down and became stuck to the flypaper with all the other flies.

  MORAL: There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.

  The Lion Who Wanted to Zoom

  THERE WAS ONCE a lion who coveted an eagle’s wings. So he sent a message to the eagle asking him to call, and when the eagle came to the lion’s den the lion said, “I will trade you my mane for your wings.” “Keep talking, brother,” said the eagle. “Without my wings I could no longer fly.” “So what?” said the lion. “I can’t fly now, but that doesn’t keep me from being king of beasts. I became king of beasts on account of my magnificent mane.” “All right,” said the eagle, “but give me your mane first.” “Just approach a little nearer,” said the lion, “so that I can hand it to you.” The eagle came closer and the lion clapped a huge paw on him, pinning him to the ground. “Come across with those wings!” he snarled.

  So the lion took the eagle’s wings but kept his own mane. The eagle was very despondent for a while and then he had an idea. “I bet you can’t fly off the top of that great rock yonder,” said the eagle. “Who, me?” said the lion, and he walked to the top of the rock and took off. His weight was too great for the eagle’s wings to support, and besides he did not know how to fly, never having tried it before. So he crashed at the foot of the rock and burst into flames. The eagle hastily climbed down to him and regained his wings and took off the lion’s mane, which he put about his own neck and shoulders. Flying back to the rocky nest where he lived with his mate, he decided to have some fun with her. So, covered with the lion’s mane, he poked his head into the nest and in a deep, awful voice said,
“Harrrooo!” His mate, who was very nervous anyway, grabbed a pistol from a bureau drawer and shot him dead, thinking he was a lion.

  MORAL: Never allow a nervous female to have access to a pistol, no matter what you’re wearing.

  The Very Proper Gander

  NOT SO VERY long ago there was a very fine gander. He was strong and smooth and beautiful and he spent most of his time singing to his wife and children. One day somebody who saw him strutting up and down in his yard and singing remarked, “There is a very proper gander.” An old hen overheard this and told her husband about it that night in the roost. “They said something about propaganda,” she said. “I have always suspected that,” said the rooster, and he went around the barnyard next day telling everybody that the very fine gander was a dangerous bird, more than likely a hawk in gander’s clothing. A small brown hen remembered a time when at a great distance she had seen the gander talking with some hawks in the forest. “They were up to no good,” she said. A duck remembered that the gander had once told him he did not believe in anything. “He said to hell with the flag, too,” said the duck. A guinea hen recalled that she had once seen somebody who looked very much like the gander throw something that looked a great deal like a bomb. Finally everybody snatched up sticks and stones and descended on the gander’s house. He was strutting in his front yard, singing to his children and his wife. “There he is!” everybody cried. “Hawk-lover! Unbeliever! Flag-hater! Bomb-thrower!” So they set upon him and drove him out of the country.

  MORAL: Anybody who you or your wife thinks is going to overthrow the government by violence must be driven out of the country.

  The Moth and the Star

  A YOUNG AND IMPRESSIONABLE moth once set his heart on a certain star. He told his mother about this and she counselled him to set his heart on a bridge lamp instead. “Stars aren’t the thing to hang around,” she said; “lamps are the thing to hang around.” “You get somewhere that way,” said the moth’s father. “You don’t get anywhere chasing stars.” But the moth would not heed the words of either parent. Every evening at dusk when the star came out he would start flying toward it and every morning at dawn he would crawl back home worn out with his vain endeavor. One day his father said to him, “You haven’t burned a wing in months, boy, and it looks to me as if you were never going to. All your brothers have been badly burned flying around street lamps and all your sisters have been terribly singed flying around house lamps. Come on, now, get out of here and get yourself scorched! A big strapping moth like you without a mark on him!”

  The moth left his father’s house, but he would not fly around street lamps and he would not fly around house lamps. He went right on trying to reach the star, which was four and one-third light years, or twenty-five trillion miles, away. The moth thought it was just caught in the top branches of an elm. He never did reach the star, but he went right on trying, night after night, and when he was a very, very old moth he began to think that he really had reached the star and he went around saying so. This gave him a deep and lasting pleasure, and he lived to a great old age. His parents and his brothers and his sisters had all been burned to death when they were quite young.

  MORAL: Who flies afar from the sphere of our sorrow is here today and here tomorrow.

  The Shrike and the Chipmunks

  ONCE UPON A TIME there were two chipmunks, a male and a female. The male chipmunk thought that arranging nuts in artistic patterns was more fun than just piling them up to see how many you could pile up. The female was all for piling up as many as you could. She told her husband that if he gave up making designs with the nuts there would be room in their large cave for a great many more and he would soon become the wealthiest chipmunk in the woods. But he would not let her interfere with his designs, so she flew into a rage and left him. “The shrike will get you,” she said, “because you are helpless and cannot look after yourself.” To be sure, the female chipmunk had not been gone three nights before the male had to dress for a banquet and could not find his studs or shirt or suspenders. So he couldn’t go to the banquet, but that was just as well, because all the chipmunks who did go were attacked and killed by a weasel.

  The next day the shrike began hanging around outside the chipmunk’s cave, waiting to catch him. The shrike couldn’t get in because the doorway was clogged up with soiled laundry and dirty dishes. “He will come out for a walk after breakfast and I will get him then,” thought the shrike. But the chipmunk slept all day and did not get up and have breakfast until after dark. Then he came out for a breath of air before beginning work on a new design. The shrike swooped down to snatch up the chipmunk, but could not see very well on account of the dark, so he batted his head against an alder branch and was killed.

  A few days later the female chipmunk returned and saw the awful mess the house was in. She went to the bed and shook her husband. “What would you do without me?” she demanded. “Just go on living, I guess,” he said. “You wouldn’t last five days,” she told him. She swept the house and did the dishes and sent out the laundry, and then she made the chipmunk get up and wash and dress. “You can’t be healthy if you lie in bed all day and never get any exercise,” she told him. So she took him for a walk in the bright sunlight and they were both caught and killed by the shrike’s brother, a shrike named Stoop.

  MORAL: Early to rise and early to bed makes a male healthy and wealthy and dead.

  The Seal Who Became Famous

  A SEAL WHO lay basking on a large, smooth rock said to himself: all I ever do is swim. None of the other seals can swim any better than I can, he reflected, but, on the other hand, they can all swim just as well. The more he pondered the monotony and uniformity of his life, the more depressed he became. That night he swam away and joined a circus.

  Within two years the seal had become a great balancer. He could balance lamps, billiard cues, medicine balls, hassocks, taborets, dollar cigars, and anything else you gave him. When he read in a book a reference to the Great Seal of the United States, he thought it meant him. In the winter of his third year as a performer he went back to the large, smooth rock to visit his friends and family. He gave them the Big Town stuff right away: the latest slang, liquor in a golden flask, zippers, a gardenia in his lapel. He balanced for them everything there was on the rock to balance, which wasn’t much. When he had run through his repertory, he asked the other seals if they could do what he had done and they all said no. “O.K.,” he said. “Let’s see you do something I can’t do.” Since the only thing they could do was swim, they all plunged off the rock into the sea. The circus seal plunged right after them, but he was so hampered by his smart city clothes, including a pair of seventeen-dollar shoes, that he began to founder at once. Since he hadn’t been in swimming for three years, he had forgot what to do with his flippers and tail, and he went down for the third time before the other seals could reach him. They gave him a simple but dignified funeral.

  MORAL: Whom God has equipped with flippers should not monkey around with zippers.

  The Hunter and the Elephant

  ONCE UPON A TIME there was a hunter who spent the best years of his life looking for a pink elephant. He looked in Cathay and he looked in Africa; he looked in Zanzibar and he looked in India; but he couldn’t find one. The longer he looked, the more he wanted a pink elephant. He would trample black orchids and he would walk right past purple cows, so intent was he on his quest. Then one day in a far corner of the world he came upon a pink elephant and he spent ten days digging a trap for it and he hired forty natives to help him drive the elephant into the trap. The pink elephant was finally captured and tied up and taken back to America.

  When the hunter got home, he found that his farm was really no place for an elephant. It trampled his wife’s dahlias and peonies, it broke his children’s toys, it crushed the smaller animals around the place, and it smashed pianos and kitchen cabinets as if they were berry boxes. One day, when the hunter had had the elephant for about two years, he woke up to find
that his wife had left his bed and his children had left his board and all the animals on the estate were dead except the elephant. The elephant was the same as ever except that it had faded. It wasn’t pink any more. It was white.

  MORAL: A burden in the bush is worth two on your hands.

  The Scotty Who Knew Too Much

  SEVERAL SUMMERS AGO there was a Scotty who went to the country for a visit. He decided that all the farm dogs were cowards, because they were afraid of a certain animal that had a white stripe down its back. “You are a pussycat and I can lick you,” the Scotty said to the farm dog who lived in the house where the Scotty was visiting. “I can lick the little animal with the white stripe, too. Show him to me.” “Don’t you want to ask any questions about him?” said the farm dog. “Naw,” said the Scotty. “You ask the questions.”

  So the farm dog took the Scotty into the woods and showed him the white-striped animal and the Scotty closed in on him, growling and slashing. It was all over in a moment and the Scotty lay on his back. When he came to, the farm dog said, “What happened?” “He threw vitriol,” said the Scotty, “but he never laid a glove on me.”

  A few days later the farm dog told the Scotty there was another animal all the farm dogs were afraid of. “Lead me to him,” said the Scotty. “I can lick anything that doesn’t wear horseshoes.” “Don’t you want to ask any questions about him?” said the farm dog. “Naw,” said the Scotty. “Just show me where he hangs out.” So the farm dog led him to a place in the woods and pointed out the little animal when he came along. “A clown,” said the Scotty, “a pushover,” and he closed in, leading with his left and exhibiting some mighty fancy footwork. In less than a second the Scotty was flat on his back, and when he woke up the farm dog was pulling quills out of him. “What happened?” said the farm dog. “He pulled a knife on me,” said the Scotty, “but at least I have learned how you fight out here in the country, and now I am going to beat you up.” So he closed in on the farm dog, holding his nose with one front paw to ward off the vitriol and covering his eyes with the other front paw to keep out the knives. The Scotty couldn’t see his opponent and he couldn’t smell his opponent and he was so badly beaten that he had to be taken back to the city and put in a nursing home.