The Goatherd and the Wild
Goats
A Goatherd,
driving his flock
from their pasture at eventide, found some Wild Goats mingled among
them,
and shut them up together with his own for the night.
The next
day it snowed very
hard, so that he could not take the herd to their usual feeding places,
but was obliged to keep them in the fold.
He gave his
own goats just
sufficient food to keep them alive, but fed the strangers more
abundantly
in the hope of enticing them to stay with him and of making them his
own.
When the
thaw set in, he
led them all out to feed, and the Wild Goats scampered away as fast as
they could to the mountains.
The
Goatherd scolded them
for their ingratitude in leaving him, when during the storm he had
taken
more care of them than of his own herd.
One of
them, turning about,
said to him: "That is the very reason why we are so cautious; for if
you
yesterday treated us better than the Goats you have had so long, it is
plain also that if others came after us, you would in the same manner
prefer
them to ourselves."
Old friends
cannot with impunity be sacrificed for new ones.
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