6. The Fox And The Grapes

    Would you like to know why people sometimes laugh and say to each other, "Sour grapes"? 

    Well, they are thinking of the story of a hungry fox who lived in a land so sunny that the grapes ripened on vines in the open air.  One evening this fox set off a hunting, as foxes do, and presently came to a rich man's garden, full of roses for sweet scents and gay colors, and dark cypress trees for cool shade.  Better than any of these, to the fox's mind, however, was a high trellis covered with vines.  And among the green vine-leaves hung bunches of purple grapes.

    "I will have some of those grapes for my supper," said the fox to himself.  So he crouched down, and then made a flying leap, up from the ground, at the grapes.

    But, though all his four pads were in the air at once, he landed back on the pathway without having reached even the lowest bunch that hung on the vine above his head.  He was naturally very much disappointed and annoyed.

    He was a persevering fox, however, and his mouth was still watering for the grapes.  So he leaped again and again until, at last, he was so tired that he could not jump more than four inches from the ground.

    Then he lifted his head, and barked at the sweet, ripe, purple grapes.

    "Nasty sour things you are," he snarled contemptuously.  "I wouldn't eat you if you fell right off the branches of the vine into my mouth!  Who cares for sour grapes?"

    And off he went, snarling and yarling, in search of something else for supper, leaving the delicious grapes to be eaten by the man who owned the beautiful garden.

    So, now that you have heard this story of the fox, you will know what people mean when they laugh and say, "Sour grapes."