The Oxen and the Butchers

The oxen had had enough. For years the butchers had been coming for them, and not one ox was safe. So on a chosen day they met in the field, every ox for miles around, to get rid of the butchers for good.

"Sharpen your horns!" they bellowed, and scrape, scrape, scrape went the horns on the rocks.

Then a very old ox came slowly through the crowd. He had ploughed more fields than any of them could count, and he had to stop twice to get his breath. One by one, the others fell quiet.

"Listen to me," he said. "It is true that the butchers kill us. But they have skilled hands, and they are quick, and they cause no pain that they can help. Get rid of them, and who comes next? Clumsy men who do not know the work, and that would be twice as bad."

The scraping stopped, and the oxen looked at one another.

"And be sure of this," said the old ox. "If every butcher in the land were gone tomorrow, men would still want their beef."