One day a fox climbed into a man's garden. She thought she could get hold of some chicken, but there were no chickens there, just an old cat sitting in a furrow, saddened.
-What are you doing here? - the fox asks him affectionately.
“Yes, I’m sitting here, godfather, thinking about what I, an old man, should do, where to go.” The owner kicked me out of the house, they say, I’m eating bread in vain, I’m getting old, I can’t catch mice,” the cat shared his grief with his godfather.
“Don’t be sad,” says the fox. - Come live in my hole.
The cat was happy that at least he would have a roof over his head. They went to the fox.
Three days have passed since the cat settled in the fox’s hole. Suddenly a wolf approaches the hole. A wolf is walking, stomping, the branches under him are crackling. The fox shouted to him to be quiet so he wouldn’t wake up the groom. The wolf began to beg the fox to show her groom. But the fox doesn’t even think of showing off the groom so easily. No, no, the wolf got angry and left. He met a bear and a wild boar in the forest. He told them what miracles were happening to the fox. They went to the fox and the three of them began to ask her to show them her groom. And the fox is egging them on: they say, it’s worth looking at him, but they better not come empty-handed. They bring a good treat - the groom will appear to them. Well, it’s easy for a bear and a wolf to get food. They crept up to the herd and dragged away the best bull. Meanwhile, the wild boar leveled the place so that there would be a place to feast.
The fox told all three to hide: the groom, they say, was painfully menacing, and it was more convenient to look at him from afar. And to herself she decided to get rid of the extra mouths and eat the bull and the cat together.
The animals did not argue with the fox, they hid as she ordered. A wolf climbed into a willow tree, a bear climbed a tree, and a boar buried itself in the moss. The fox brought out the cat. A cat is walking, moving its whiskers. He got hungry in the fox's hole, saw a bull, pounced on the food, eats and purrs with greed.
“Here it’s loaded: purr yes purr,” the wolf mutters in the bushes. “He’ll probably eat the whole bull by himself.”
The boar also wanted to look at the cat, and he stuck his snout out of the moss. And the cat, deciding that it was a mouse, clawed at the boar’s very spot. The boar got scared and went away. The cat saw what a huge mouse he had come across, and out of fear he jumped into the willow tree and landed right on the wolf. “Well, I’m screwed,” the wolf thinks, and rushed to his heels. Then the cat got completely scared, and out of fear he jumped onto a tree. The bear froze, fell to the ground and - God forbid his legs - rushed after the wolf and the boar. So the bull was left for the fox and the cat for two.
The cat was so old that he couldn’t even catch mice, but he got an excellent roast for himself and the fox. The smart one will not lose money.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru