The Amiable Ape, so the story goes,
is a barber as you suppose.
If you have her trim your ruff,
be sure to say, “Enough is enough.”
The Funny Fox said, “The other day I went to visit the Amiable Ape, our lady barber, to get a haircut. I sat down in her chair, and as her shears went ‘snip, snip, snip,’ she said,
‘See that picture on the wall,
the Lion who is King of all.'”
The Funny Fox said, “I got so interested in looking at the Lordly Lion in his handsome robe, and I so admired his crown, while the Amiable Ape’s shears went ‘snip, snip, snip,’ that I never gave a thought to what she was doing, until as bad luck would have it, I was shorn like a lamb! Now, I have to wear clothing to keep warm, and the Amiable Ape said to me as I went out,
‘Look in the mirror as you go out,
you’ll like your appearance beyond a doubt.'”
I was so angry I nearly tumbled over her servant as she was bringing in the oil to finish the hairdressing. The Amiable Ape called after me,
“I left fur on your tail and toes,
that will help some, I suppose!”
I was so angry to find the Amiable Ape had been playing a trick on me, for she was usually my friend, but still, I was thankful to have some fur left, which reminds me of the saying, “Half a loaf is better than no bread.”
To change the epic, the Bold Badger said,
“I’ve heard that story once or twice,
let’s all go skating on the ice.”
So out they went, and while the Bold Badger was fitting his skates on, many interesting things happened.
Credits
Laura Rountree Smith was an American author and educator active in the early twentieth century, best known for her cheerful, morality-laced animal stories aimed at young readers. Amiable Ape blends light verse with comic prose, a format Smith frequently used to slip a life lesson into an entertaining scene.
