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.
