But he was proud and angry, and said, “They are of no use in the world. 
I would not care if they always stayed away.”

Hong-Mo answered, “You are not the only Chicken in the world.  I want the others to come back.  If you drive them all away, you will surely see trouble.”

But the King laughed and jumped up on the fence and crowed.  “Nga-Un-Gan-Yu-Na” (cock-a-doodle-doo-oo) in a loud voice.  “I don’t care for you!  I don’t care for you!”

Hong-Mo went out and called the Chickens, and she hunted long through the twilight until the dark night came, but she could not find them.  The next morning early she went to the vegetable garden, and there she found her Chickens.  They were glad to see her, and bowed their heads and flew to her.

Hong-Mo said, “What are you doing?  Why do you children stay out here, when I have given you a good house to live in?”

The Secretary told her all about the trouble with the King.

Hong-Mo said, “Now you must be friendly to each other.  Come with me, and I will bring you and your King together.  We must have peace here.”

When the Chickens came to where the King was he walked about, and scraped his wings on the ground, and sharpened his spurs.  His people had come to make peace, and they bowed their heads and looked happy when they saw their King.  But he still walked about alone and would not bow.

He said, “I am a King—­always a King.  Do you know that?  You bow your heads and think that pleases me.  But what do I care?  I should not care if there was never another Chicken in the world but myself.  I am King.”

And he hopped up on a tree and sang some war songs.  But suddenly an eagle who heard him, flew down and caught him in his talons and carried him away.  And the Chickens never saw their proud, quarrelsome King again.

EE-SZE (Meaning):  No position in life is so high that it gives the right to be proud and quarrelsome.

The Hen and the Chinese Mountain Turtle

Four hundred and fifty years ago in Lze-Cheung Province, Western China, there lived an old farmer named Ah-Po.

The young farmers all said Ah-Po knew everything.  If they wanted to know when it would rain, they asked Ah-Po, and when he said:  “It will not rain to-morrow,” or, “You will need your bamboo-hat this time to-morrow,” it was as he said.  He knew all about the things of nature and how to make the earth yield best her fruits and seeds, and some said he was a prophet.

One day Ah-Po caught a fine Mountain Turtle.  It was so large that it took both of Ah-Po’s sons to carry it home.  They tied its legs together and hung it on a strong stick, and each son put an end of the stick on his shoulder.

Ah-Po said, “We will not kill the Turtle.  He is too old to eat, and I think we will keep him and watch the rings grow around his legs each year.”  So they gave him a corner in the barnyard and fed him rice and water.