THE TORTOISE, THE MONKEY, and THE BANANA TREE (4)

THE TORTOISE, THE　MONKEY, and THE BANANA TREE (4)

So she put on the best face she could and went to visit him.

" Well, I'll pick the fruit for you, " said the monkey, " butー"

" But what ? " asked the tortoise, nervously.

" But I'll want half the bananas for my trouble, " said the monkey.

Well, as they say, beggars can't choosers; so the tortoise had to agree.

And grinning broadly, the monkey shinned up the tree, and reaching the top, calmly began to eat the bananas.

Not one did he trow down to the waiting tortoise.

" Hi ! " cried the tortoise.
" Half for youーhalf for me ! Remember ? So every time you eat one, throw one down to me. "

But the monkey only laughedーthe sort of laugh you get from a monkey when its mouth full of delicious ripe bananas.

" No, " he said.
" No ! These are very good bananas, by the way. You must have looked after them very well !　No ! You cheated me when we divided the tree. You let me take the worthless half, though I'm sure you knew it wouldn't grow. So now I'm going to eat every single banana ! "

And it began to rain banana skins as the monkey tossed them down from his perch at the top of tree.

If tortoise could turn purple with rage, that tortoise would have turned purple with rage.

As it was, she did some thinking; and then she crawled off to the other end of the yard and gathered some blackthorn branches.

These she scattered on the ground under the tree.
Then she hide.

The monkey came to the end of his feast, and very much heavier than when he went up, leaped down from the tree.

He landed right in the middle of the thorns.

" Ow ! " he cried.
" Ouch ! Ow !"

And he leaped from foot to foot, and shrieked and screeched.

blackthornートゲだらけのユーラシアの低木

(つづく　4/5)