Down they all clambered, and in a very short time they were sitting
beside him on the grass.
"Monkeys," said he, "I have been a good friend to you, letting you
eat my nuts and apples. And now I want to take a holiday. Will you
water my garden while I am away?"
"Oh yes, yes, yes!" cried the Monkeys. They thought it a great joke,
and leaped for joy.
So the gardener handed over his watering-pots to the monkeys, and
put on his Sunday clothes, and went away to the fair.
Meanwhile,the Monkeys held a solemn council, sitting in a ring round
the Monkey chief.
"Brothers," said the Monkey chief, "our good friend, the gardener
has given us charge of this garden and all there is in it. We must
take care not to hurt anything, and, above all, not to waste the
water. There is very little water, and I really don't think it will
go round."
It was in fact a well, very small at the top, but very deep, and at
the bottom the water was always running. You might have watered till
doomsday out of that well; but monkeys, though they are cunning,
are not wise, and these monkeys thought that a little round hole
could not hold very much water.
"So you see," the Monkey chief went on, "you must give each plant
just enough water, and no more; and I think the best way will be,
to see how long the roots are."
So each Monkey took a watering-pot, and they scattered all over
the garden. Every bush and every plant they carefully pulled up, and
measured its roots; and then they gave a great deal of water to plants
with long roots, and only a little when the roots were short. After
that they put the plants and bushes back in the holes they came from.
After a day or two, back came the gardener from his fair. But what
was his horror to see that nearly all the plants in the garden were
drooping, some of them dead and many dying, while the Monkeys were
busy in every direction pulling up the rest.
"Oh dear, oh dear, what in the world are you doing? My garden is
ruined, my garden is ruined!" The poor gardener wept for sorrow.
The Chief Monkey was very much surprised. He thought he had been very
clever to put water according to the size of the roots, and he said so.
"Clever!" said the gardener. "Clever indeed! Fools you are, there is
no mistake about it."
"Fools they may be," said his master, who had come up behind him
without being seen, "but, after all, that is their nature. You ought
to have known better than to put monkeys in charge of a garden,
and you are a greater fool than they."
Then he sent that gardener away and got another.