AND TEN SMALLER ONES IN THE TEXT.
The Story of a Donkey.
CHAPTER I.
Men, poor things, can’t be expected to be as wise as donkeys, and therefore you probably do not know that there was a market in our country-town every Tuesday. At this market vegetables were sold, and butter, and eggs, and cheese, and fruit, and many other nice things.
Tuesday was a miserable day for the poor donkeys, and especially for me. I belonged to a farmer’s wife, and she was very severe and ill-tempered. Just think! every week she used to load up my back with all the eggs her hens laid, all the butter and cheese she made from the milk of her cows, all the vegetables and fruit that were ready for market out of her garden. Then she would get on the top of all this and beat me with a hard, knotty stick because my poor thin legs didn’t carry her to market with all that load as fast as she liked. I trotted, I almost galloped, but that farmer’s wife whipped me all the same. I used to get very angry at such cruelty and injustice. I tried to kick her off, but I was loaded down too heavily, and so I could only wobble about from side to side; but I did have the satisfaction of knowing that she was well jolted. Then she would growl, “Ah, you wretched animal! see if I don’t teach you to wobble!” and she would beat me again till I could scarcely keep on my legs.
One day we reached the market-town in this way, and the baskets with which my poor back had been nearly crushed were taken off and set down upon the ground. My mistress hitched me to a post, and went away to get her dinner. I was dying of hunger and thirst, but nobody thought of offering me a single blade of grass or a drop of water. While the farmer’s wife was away, I managed to get my head close to the basket of vegetables, and made a dinner of the cabbages and lettuces. I never tasted anything so good.