Junior Classics Volume 1: Fairy and Wonder Tales

<h5 id="id00939">THE LION AND THE GOAT</h5> <p id="id00940">By Ramaswami Raju</p> <p id="id00941">A LION was eating up one after another the animals of a certain country. One day an old Goat said, "We must put a stop to this. I have a plan by which he may be sent away from this part of the country."</p> <p id="id00942">"Pray act up to it at once," said the other animals.</p> <p id="id00943">The old Goat laid himself down in a cave on the roadside, with his flowing beard and long curved horns. The Lion, on his way to the village, saw him, and stopped at the mouth of the cave.</p> <p id="id00944">"So you have come, after all," said the Goat.</p> <p id="id00945">"What do you mean?" said the Lion.</p> <p id="id00946">"Why, I have long been lying in this cave. I have eaten up one hundred elephants, a hundred tigers, a thousand wolves, and ninety-nine lions. One more lion has been wanting. I have waited long and patiently. Heaven has, after all, been kind to me," said the Goat, and shook his horns and his beard, and made a start as if he were about to spring upon the Lion.</p> <p id="id00947">The latter said to himself, "This animal looks like a Goat, but it does not talk like one. So it is very likely some wicked spirit in this shape. Prudence often serves us better than valor, so for the present I shall return to the wood," and he turned back.</p> <p id="id00948">The Goat rose up, and, advancing to the mouth of the cave, said, "Will you come back tomorrow?"</p> <p id="id00949">"Never again," said the Lion.</p> <p id="id00950">"Do you think I shall be able to see you, at least, in the wood to- morrow?"</p> <p id="id00951">"Neither in the wood nor in this neighborhood any more," said the Lion, and running to the forest, soon left it with his kindred.</p> <p id="id00952">The animals in the country, not hearing him roar any more, gathered round the Goat, and said, "The wisdom of one doth save a host."</p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />