Aesop's Fables

End of Book II.

Book III of The Fables of Æsop.

This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

Recording by Leny.

The Fables of Æsop, by Æsop.

Translated by Henry Thomas Riley.

Book III.

He was attacked one day as he stood near a tree by a larger boy with others at his back, but the crowd was greatly astonished when little Lincoln soundly thrashed the first the second and third boy in succession and then placing his back against the tree he defied the whole crowd and told them they were a lot of cowards Evidently, Father Tom, who enjoyed quite a reputation as a wrestler, had given the small boy a few lessons in the manly art of self-defense.

Meanwhile, the little brother and sister were learning still better things at their mother's knee, alternately hearing and reading stories from the Bible, the Pilgrim's Progress, Aesop's Fables, Robinson Crusoe, and other books, common now but rare enough in the backwoods in those days.

there were hard times even in the wilderness of kentucky after the war of eighteen twelve slavery was spreading and thomas and nancy lincoln heartily hated that relic of barbarism to avoid witnessing its wrongs which made it harder for self-respecting white men to rise above the class referred to with contempt in the south as poor white trash tom lincoln determined to move farther north and west and deeper into the wilds it is sometimes stated that abraham lincoln belonged to the indolent class known as poor whites but this is not true shiftless and improvident though his father was he had no use for that class of white slaves who seemed to fall even lower than the blacks there was trouble too about the title to much of the land in kentucky while indiana offered special inducements to settlers in that new territory in his carpenter work thomas lincoln had learned how to build a flat boat and had made at least one trip to new orleans on a craft which he himself had put together so when he finally decided in the fall of eighteen sixteen to emigrate to indiana he at once began to build another boat which he launched on the rolling fork at the mouth of knob creek about half a mile from his own cabin he traded his farm for what movable property he could get and loaded his craft with that and his carpenter tools waving good-bye to his wife and two children he floated down the rolling fork salt river and out into the ohio river which proved too rough for his shaky craft and it soon went to pieces after fishing up the carpenter tools and most of his other effects he put together a crazy raft which held till he landed at thompson's ferry perry county in southern indiana here he unloaded his raft left his valuables in the care of a settler named posey and journeyed on foot through the woods to find a good location after trudging about sixteen miles blazing a trail he found a situation which suited him well enough he thought then he walked all the way back to the kentucky home they were about to leave he found his wife with sarah aged nine and abraham aged seven ready to migrate with him to a newer wilderness the last thing nancy lincoln had done before leaving their old home was to take the brother and sister for a farewell visit to the grave of the little boy that died over in indiana the place the father had selected for their home was a beautiful spot they could build their cabin on a little hill sloping gently down on all sides the soil was excellent but there was one serious drawback there was no water fit to drink within a mile thomas lincoln had neglected to observe this most important point while he was prospecting his wife or even little abe would have had more common sense That was one reason why Thomas Lincoln, though a good man who tried hard enough at times, was always poor and looked down upon by his thrifty neighbors.

Instead of taking his wife and children down the three streams by boat as he had gone, the father borrowed two horses of a neighbor and packed through to Posey's, where he had left his carpenter tools and the other property he had saved from the wreck of his raft.

But Abe's kindliness, humor, love of humanity, hatred of slavery, all came from his mother.

I am free to say Abe was a mother's boy.

dennis used to like to tell of abe's earliest ventures in the fields of literature his first readin book was webster's speller then he got hold of a book i can't ricollect the name it told about a feller a nigger or suthin that sailed a flat boat up to a rock and the rock was magnetized and drawed the nails out of his boat and he got a duckin or drownded or suthin i forget now this book of course was the arabian nights abe would lay on the floor with a chair under his head and laugh over them stories by the hour i told him they was likely lies from end to end but he learned to read right well in them his stock of books was small but they were the right kind the bible the pilgrim's progress aesop's fables robinson crusoe a history of the united states and the statutes of indiana this last was a strange book for a boy to read but abe pored over it as eagerly as a lad to-day might read the three guardsmen or the hound of the baskervilles he made notes of what he read with his turkey-buzzard pen and briar-root ink if he did not have these handy he would write with a piece of charcoal or the charred end of a stick on a board or on the under side of a chair or bench he used the wooden fire shovel for a slate shaving it off clean when both sides were full of figures when he got hold of paper enough to make a copy-book he would go about transferring his notes from boards beams under sides of the chairs and the table and from all the queer places he had put them down on the spur of the moment besides the books he had at hand he borrowed all he could get often walking many miles for a book until as he once told a friend he read through every book he had ever heard of in that country for a circuit of fifty miles quite a circulating library the beginning of love the thoughts of youth are long long thoughts it must have been about this time that the lad had the following experience which he himself related to a legal friend with his chair tilted back and his knees cocked up in the manner described by cousin john hanks did you ever write out a story in your mind i did when i was a little codger one day a wagon with a lady and two girls and a man broke down near us and while they were fixing up they cooked in our kitchen the woman had books and read us stories and they were the first of the kind i ever heard i took a great fancy to one of the girls and when they were gone i thought of her a good deal and one day when i was sitting out in the sun by the house i wrote out a story in my mind i thought i took my father's horse and followed the wagon and finally i found it and they were surprised to see me i talked with the girl and persuaded her to elope with me and that night i put her on my horse and we started off across the prairie after several hours we came to a camp and when we rode up we found it was one we had left a few hours before and went in The next night we tried again, and the same thing happened.

The horse came back to the same place, and then we concluded we ought not to elope.

The list is a short one.

Robinson Crusoe, Aesop's Fables, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Weems' Life of Washington, and a History of the United States.

When everything else had been read, he resolutely began on the revised statutes of Indiana, which Dave Turnham, the constable, had in daily use, but permitted him to come to his house and read.

Though so fond of his books, it must not be supposed that he cared only for work and serious study.

Thank you so much.

And Megan said Aesop's Fables.

Which is like, not no, but also no. Yeah.

That's what I said.

Recorded by Ted McElroy, Austin, Texas.

Aesop's Fables: The Man and the Image.

A poor man had a wooden image of a god to which he used to pray daily for riches.

He did this for a long time, but remained as poor as ever, till one day, he caught up the image in disgust and hurled it with all his strength against the wall.

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Recorded by Lee Dunkelberg, Fort Worth, Texas, Dunkelberg.com, D-U-N-K-E-L-B-E-R-G dot com.

Aesop's Fables: Hercules and the Waggoner.

A waggoner was driving his team along a muddy lane with a full load behind them when the wheels of his wagon sank so deep in the mire that no efforts of his horses could move them.

Persuasion is better than force.

End of Section 5 Section 6 of Aesop's Fables, a new revised version.

THE LABORER AND THE SNAKE A snake, having made his hole close to the porch of a cottage, inflicted a severe bite on the cottager's infant son, of which he died, to the great grief of his parents.

The father resolved to kill the snake, and the next day on its coming out of its hole for food took up his ax, but making too much haste to hit him as he wriggled away, missed his head and cut off only the end of his tail.

Consider her ways and be wise, which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer and gathereth her food in the harvest.

If you're a fan of Aesop's Fables, which would be wisdom literature from ancient Greece, you know about the ant and the grasshopper.

And the grasshopper just wants to live it up and it'll take care of itself and it doesn't.

Whereas the ant is laboring, is providing meat in the summer, gathering her food in the harvest so that the ants can make it through times of scarcity.