A FABLE.
A spruce young goat tried very hard to make himself appear like a sheep. He endeavored to talk and act like a sheep. Half his time was spent in putting on airs. He went so far as to cut off his beard, so that he might bear a more striking resemblance to the sheep family; and he was once heard to say that he would give anything if he could either get rid of his horns altogether, or have them twisted as the horns were worn by some of the old fathers whom he so much admired. The little simpleton, however, lost more than he gained by his singular manners. Instead of his being more respected and beloved, as he expected to be, he was despised by everybody.
The Goat and his Pupil.
One day, after being ridiculed and abused by some of his young neighbors, he went to his schoolmaster with a great budget full of troubles. This schoolmaster was an old goat, with a long beard, and a long head, too, as it would seem from the character he had.
"O dear!" said the little simpleton, "everybody hates me. I wish I were dead. I'm sure I don't know what it means. The more I try to be good, the less they all like me."
"My dear fellow," said Mr. Longbeard, "I am sorry for you. But I can do nothing to help you. It will always be so, until you do better."
"Why, I do as well as I can now," replied the young goat.
"You ape the sheep too much."
"Well, the farmer thinks more of his sheep than he does of his goats—a great deal more."
"And what of it?"
"Why, if he likes the sheep best, he will like me best when I act as the sheep do."
"That's your mistake. He will not like you half as well."
"Why not?"
"For the same reason that nobody else likes you so well—because you don't act like yourself. Take my advice, now. Be yourself. Don't try to be anybody else. Depend upon it, if you ever come across a person that likes you, he will like you as a goat, and not as a sheep. A sheep you could never be, though you should practice all your life-time. Be a goat, then—be a goat, and nothing else."
This advice, I believe, proved of some service to the juvenile goat; and by the way, reader, perhaps it may be worth something to you.
XV.
ON BARKING DOGS.
It is an old saying—and there is a good deal of truth in it—that "barking dogs never bite." I say there is a good deal of truth in it. It is not strictly true. Scarcely any proverb will bear picking to pieces, and analyzing, as a botanist would pick to pieces and analyze a rose or a tulip. Almost all dogs bark a little, now and then. Still I believe those dogs bark the most that bite the least, and the dogs that make a practice of biting the hardest and the oftenest, make very little noise about it.
Have you never been passing by a house, and seen a little pocket edition of a cur run out of the front door yard, to meet you, with ever so much bravery and heroism, as if he intended to eat you at two or three mouthfuls? What a barking he set up. The meaning of his bow, wow, wow, every time he repeated the words, was, "I'll bite you! I'll bite you!" But the very moment you turned round and faced him, he ran back into the yard, as if forty tigers were after him. You see he was all bark, and no bite.
Well, it is about the same with men and women, and boys and girls, as it is with dogs. Those who bark most bite least, the world over.
Show me a boy who talks about being as bold as a lion, and I will show you one with the heart of a young rabbit, just learning to eat cabbage. I do dislike to see boys and girls boasting of what they can do. It always gives me a low opinion of their merits.
There is Tom Thrasher. You don't know Tom, do you? Well, he is one of your barking dogs. He is all the time boasting of the great things he is able to do. Nobody ever saw him do any such things. Still he keeps on boasting, right in the midst of the young people who know him through and through, a great deal better than he knows himself. It is strange that he should brag at that rate where everybody knows him. But he has fallen into the habit of bragging, and I suppose he hardly thinks of the absurd and foolish language he is using. According to his account of himself, he can run a mile in a minute, jump over a fence ten rails high, shoot an arrow from his bow twenty rods, and hit an apple at that distance half a dozen times running.
I must tell you a story about this Tom Thrasher. Poor Tom! he got "come up with," not long ago, by some fun-loving boys that lived in his neighborhood. Tom had been boasting of his great feats in jumping. He could jump higher than any boy on Blue Hill. In fact, he had just jumped over the fence around Captain Corning's goat pasture, which, as everybody knows, was eight rails high, and verily believed he could have cleared it just as easily, if it had been two rails higher. That was the kind of language he used to this company of boys. They did not believe a word he said.
"Let's try Tom," one whispered to another, "let's try the fellow, and see how high he can jump."
"Say, Tom," said one of the boys, "will you go down to the captain's goat pasture with us, and try that thing over again?"
Tom did not seem to be very fierce for going. But all the boys urged him so hard, that he finally consented and went. When he got to the goat pasture, he measured the fence with his eye; and from the manner in which he shrugged his shoulders, it was pretty clear that he considered the fence a very high one indeed. He was not at all in a hurry about performing the feat. But the roguish boys would not let him off.
"Come, Tom," said one.
"Now for it," said another.
"No backing out," said a third.
"It's only eight rails high," said a fourth.
Still, somehow or other, Tom could not get his courage quite up to the point. The best thing he could have done, in my way of thinking, when he found himself so completely cornered was to have said, "Well, boys, there's no use in mincing the matter at all. I am a little dunce. I can no more jump over that fence than I can build a steamboat or catch a streak of lightning." But that was not his way of getting out of the scrape.
"Let me give the word now," said one of the lads. "I'll say 'one, two, three,' and when I come to 'three,' you shall run and jump."
"Go ahead," said Tom.
And the other boy began: "One—two—three"—
Tom started, and ran. I'm not sure but he had boasted so much about his jumping, that he had almost made himself believe he really could jump over that fence. At any rate, he tried it, and—failed, of course. His feet struck the fence about three quarters of the distance from the ground, and over he went, head foremost, into the goat pasture. It was fortunate for him that he did not break his neck. As it was, his spirit was broken, and that was about all. He went home a much humbler boy than he was when he came to the goat pasture; and a somewhat wiser one, too. After that unfortunate leap, if Tom ever boasted largely of what he could do and what he had done, it was a very common thing for his playmates to say, "Take care, Tom; remember that famous leap."