So the bear went.  When he came back, he said: 

“Both the cat and the ass have lied; there was nothing in the hole but a bear.”

Great was the surprise and puzzlement of the animals.  Each was now anxious to make the test himself and get at the straight truth.  The elephant sent them one at a time.

First, the cow.  She found nothing in the hole but a cow.

The tiger found nothing in it but a tiger.

The lion found nothing in it but a lion.

The leopard found nothing in it but a leopard.

The camel found a camel, and nothing more.

Then Hathi was wroth, and said he would have the truth, if he had to go and fetch it himself.  When he returned, he abused his whole subjectry for liars, and was in an unappeasable fury with the moral and mental blindness of the cat.  He said that anybody but a near-sighted fool could see that there was nothing in the hole but an elephant.

Moral, by the cat

You can find in a text whatever you bring, if you will stand between it and the mirror of your imagination.  You may not see your ears, but they will be there.

HUNTING THE DECEITFUL TURKEY

When I was a boy my uncle and his big boys hunted with the rifle, the youngest boy Fred and I with a shotgun—­a small single-barrelled shotgun which was properly suited to our size and strength; it was not much heavier than a broom.  We carried it turn about, half an hour at a time.  I was not able to hit anything with it, but I liked to try.  Fred and I hunted feathered small game, the others hunted deer, squirrels, wild turkeys, and such things.  My uncle and the big boys were good shots.  They killed hawks and wild geese and such like on the wing; and they didn’t wound or kill squirrels, they stunned them.  When the dogs treed a squirrel, the squirrel would scamper aloft and run out on a limb and flatten himself along it, hoping to make himself invisible in that way —­and not quite succeeding.  You could see his wee little ears sticking up.  You couldn’t see his nose, but you knew where it was.  Then the hunter, despising a “rest” for his rifle, stood up and took offhand aim at the limb and sent a bullet into it immediately under the squirrel’s nose, and down tumbled the animal, unwounded, but unconscious; the dogs gave him a shake and he was dead.  Sometimes when the distance was great and the wind not accurately allowed for, the bullet would hit the squirrel’s head; the dogs could do as they pleased with that one—­the hunter’s pride was hurt, and he wouldn’t allow it to go into the gamebag.