THE STORY OF THE DEAD GAME AND THE JACKAL

"In a town called 'Well-to-Dwell' there lived a mighty hunter, whose
name was 'Grim-face,' Feeling a desire one day for a little venison, he
took his bow, and went into the woods; where he soon killed a deer. As
he was carrying the deer home, he came upon a wild boar of prodigious
proportions. Laying the deer upon the earth, he fixed and discharged an
arrow and struck the boar, which instantly rushed upon him with a roar
louder than the last thunder, and ripped the hunter up. He fell like a
tree cut by the axe, and lay dead along with the boar, and a snake also,
which had been crushed by the feet of the combatants. Not long
afterwards, there came that way, in his prowl for food, a Jackal, named
'Howl o' Nights,' and cast eyes on the hunter, the deer, the boar, and
the snake lying dead together. 'Aha!' said he, 'what luck! Here's a
grand dinner got ready for me! Good fortune can come, I see, as well as
ill fortune. Let me think:--the man will be fine pickings for a month;
the deer with the boar will last two more; the snake will do for
to-morrow; and, as I am very particularly hungry, I will treat myself
now to this bit of meat on the bow-horn,' So saying, he began to gnaw it
asunder, and the bow-string slipping, the bow sprang back, and resolved
Howl o' Nights into the five elements by death. That is my story,"
continued Slow-toes, "and its application is for the wise:--

'Sentences of studied wisdom, nought avail they unapplied;
Though the blind man hold a lantern, yet his footsteps stray aside.'

The secret of success, indeed, is a free, contented, and yet
enterprising mind. How say the books thereon?--

'Wouldst thou know whose happy dwelling Fortune entereth unknown?