How to live in peace

In the old days, farmers sometimes encouraged snakes and wesels to live in the barn and kill the mice that ate their corn. But on one farm there was a bad tempered weasels and a peppery old snake, and instead of killing the mice they kept fighting each other. The mice thought this was wonderful, of course. At first, they just put their heads cautiously out of their holes to watch.

Before long, they began to form a circle around the two fighters and cheer for one side or the other. For a while, the snake and the weasel were so busy scrapping they didn't even notice. One day, however, they stopped for a rest in the middle of a particularly tiring fight. They looked around them and then at each other.

"Why are we wasting so much eating time," they asked themselves.

"There's enough food here to make us fat and good-tempered." And they set about gobbling up the mice.