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1910s African American Education Folktale Short Story Wild animals

The Boy and the Ideal

The Boy and the Ideal

By Joseph S. Cotter Sr.
Annotations by Rene Marzuk
Bullard, William. Portrait of a Boy Sitting on the Grass. Photograph, c. 1904, courtesy of Frank Morrill, Clark University and the Worcester Art Museum. Public Domain.

Once upon a time a Mule, a Hog, a Snake, and a Boy met. Said the Mule: “I eat and labor that I may grow strong in the heels. It is fine to have heels so gifted. My heels make people cultivate distance.”

Said the Hog: “I eat and labor that I may grow strong in the snout. It is fine to have a fine snout. I keep people watching for my snout.”

“No exchanging heels for snouts,” broke in the Mule.

“No’” answered the Hog; “snouts are naturally above heels.”

Said the Snake: “I eat to live, and live and cultivate my sting. The way people shun me shows my greatness. Beget stings, comrades, and stings will beget glory.”

Said the Boy: “There is a star in my life like unto a star in the sky. I eat and labor that I may think aright and feel aright. These rounds will conduct me to my star. Oh, inviting star!”

“I am not so certain of that,” said the Mule. “I have noticed your kind and ever see some of myself in them. Your star is in the distance.”

The Boy answered by smelling a flower and listening to the song of a bird. The Mule looked at him and said: “He is all tenderness and care. The true and the beautiful have robbed me of a kinsman. His star is near.”

Said the Boy: “I approach my star.”

“I am not so certain of that,” interrupted the Hog. “I have noticed your kind and I ever see some of myself in them. Your star is a delusion.”

The Boy answered by painting the flower and setting the notes of the bird’s song to music.

The Hog looked at the boy and said: “His soul is attuned by nature. The meddler in him is slain.”

“I can all but touch my star,” cried the Boy.

“I am not so certain of that,” remarked the Snake. “I have watched your kind and ever see some of myself in them. Stings are nearer than stars.”

The Boy answered by meditating upon the picture and music. The Snake departed, saying that stings and stars cannot keep company.

The Boy journeyed on, ever led by the star. Some distance away the Mule was bemoaning the presence of his heels and trying to rid himself of them by kicking a tree. The Hog was dividing his time between looking into a brook and rubbing his snout on a rock to shorten it. The Snake lay dead of its own bite. The Boy journeyed on, led by an ever inviting star.

Bridges, Fidelia. Bird on a Stalk, Singing. Chromolitograph, 1883, Library of Congress.
cotter, joseph s, sr. “the boy and the ideal,” in negro tales, 141-43. the cosmopolitan press, new york, 1912.
Contexts

This short story was also included in The Upward Path: A Reader for Colored Children, compiled by Myron T. Pritchard and Mary White Ovington, and published in 1920.

Definitions from Oxford English Dictionary:

  • beget: To get, obtain, acquire; to win, gain; to procure (something) for someone, furnish, provide. Also: to take hold of, seize.
  • kinsman: A man of one’s own kin.
  • meddler: A person who meddles or interferes in something; a nuisance, a troublemaker.
Resources for Further Study

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