NE fine summer day a very hungry fox sallied out in search of his dinner. After a while his eye rested on a young rooster, which he thought would make a very good meal: so he lay down under a wall and hid himself in the high grass, intending to wait until the rooster got near enough, and then to spring on him, and carry him off.
Suddenly, however, the rooster saw him and flew, in a great fright, to the top of the wall.
The fox could not get him there, and he knew it: so he came out from his hiding-place, and addressed the rooster thus: "Dear me!" he cried, "how handsomely you are dressed! I came to invite your magnificence to a grand christening feast. The duck and the goose have promised to come, and the turkey, though slightly ill, will try to come also.
"You see that only those of rank are bidden to this feast, and we beg you to adorn it with your splendid talent for music. We are to have the most delicate little cock-chafers served up on toast, a delicious salad of earthworms, in fact all manner of good things. Will you not return then with me to my house?"
"Oh ho!" said the rooster, "how kind you are! What fine stories you tell! Still I think it safest to decline your kind invitation. I am sorry not to go to that splendid feast; but I cannot leave my wife, for she is sitting on seven new eggs. Good-by! I hope you will relish those earthworms. Don't come too near me, or I will crow for the dogs. Good-by!"
Leonora, from the German.
