The Horse and His Rider

: Aesop's Fables

A HORSE SOLDIER took the utmost pains with his charger. As long

as the war lasted, he looked upon him as his fellow-helper in all

emergencies and fed him carefully with hay and corn. But when

the war was over, he only allowed him chaff to eat and made him

carry heavy loads of wood, subjecting him to much slavish

drudgery and ill-treatment. War was again proclaimed, however,

and when the trumpet summoned him to his standard, the Soldier

put on his charger its military trappings, and mounted, being

clad in his heavy coat of mail. The Horse fell down straightway

under the weight, no longer equal to the burden, and said to his

master, "You must now go to the war on foot, for you have

transformed me from a Horse into an Ass; and how can you expect

that I can again turn in a moment from an Ass to a Horse?'



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