by James Thurber
reprinted from
Fables For Our Time
Once upon a sunny morning a man who sat in a breakfast nook
looked up from his scrambled eggs to see a white unicorn with a golden horn
quietly cropping the roses in the garden. The man went up to the bedroom where
his wife was still asleep and woke her. "There's a unicorn in the garden," he
said. "Eating roses." She opened one unfriendly eye and looked at him. "The unicorn is a mythical beast," she said, and turned her back on him. The
man walked slowly downstairs and out into the garden. The unicorn was still
there; now he was browsing among the tulips. "Here, unicorn," said the man, and
he pulled up a lily and gave it to him. The unicorn ate it gravely. With a high
heart, because there was a unicorn in his garden, the man went upstairs and
roused his wife again. "The unicorn," he said,"ate a lily." His wife sat up in
bed and looked at him coldly. "You are a booby," she said, "and I am going to
have you put in the booby-hatch."
The man, who had never liked the words "booby" and "booby-hatch," and who
liked them even less on a shining morning when there was a unicorn in the
garden, thought for a moment. "We'll see about that," he said. He walked over to
the door. "He has a golden horn in the middle of his forehead," he told her.
Then he went back to the garden to watch the unicorn; but the unicorn had gone
away. The man sat down among the roses and went to sleep.
As soon as the husband had gone out of the house, the wife got up and dressed
as fast as she could. She was very excited and there was a gloat in her eye. She
telephoned the police and she telephoned a psychiatrist; she told them to hurry
to her house and bring a strait-jacket. When the police and the psychiatrist
arrived they sat down in chairs and looked at her, with great interest.
"My husband," she said, "saw a unicorn this morning." The police looked at
the psychiatrist and the psychiatrist looked at the police. "He told me it ate a
lilly," she said. The psychiatrist looked at the police and the police looked at
the psychiatrist. "He told me it had a golden horn in the middle of its
forehead," she said. At a solemn signal from the psychiatrist, the police leaped
from their chairs and seized the wife. They had a hard time subduing her, for
she put up a terrific struggle, but they finally subdued her. Just as they got
her into the strait-jacket, the husband came back into the house.
"Did you tell your wife you saw a unicorn?" asked the police. "Of course
not," said the husband. "The unicorn is a mythical beast." "That's all I wanted
to know," said the psychiatrist. "Take her away. I'm sorry, sir, but your wife
is as crazy as a jaybird."
So they took her away, cursing and screaming, and shut her up in an
institution. The husband lived happily ever after.
Moral: Don't count your boobies until they are hatched.
GLOSSARY:
- booby: in this context, a crazy person (probably from the name of a stupid
extinct bird).
- booby-hatch: a mental institution, a place where the insane are kept.
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