To escape from a peasant who had come suddenly upon him, an opossum
adopted his favourite expedient of counterfeiting death.
"I suppose," said the peasant, "that ninety-nine men in a hundred
would go away and leave this poor creature's body to the beasts of
prey." [It is notorious that man is the only living thing that will
eat the animal.] "But _I_ will give him good burial."
So he dug a hole, and was about tumbling him into it, when a solemn
voice appeared to emanate from the corpse: "Let the dead bury their
dead!"
"Whatever spirit hath wrought this miracle," cried the peasant,
dropping upon his knees, "let him but add the trifling explanation of
_how_ the dead can perform this or any similar rite, and I am
obedience itself. Otherwise, in goes Mr. 'Possum by these hands."
"Ah!" meditated the unhappy beast, "I have performed one miracle, but
I can't keep it up all day, you know. The explanation demanded is a
trifle too heavy for even the ponderous ingenuity of a marsupial."
And he permitted himself to be sodded over.
If the reader knows what lesson is conveyed by this narrative, he
knows--just what the writer knows.