“The Peaceable Mongoose” by James Thurber.
“In Cobra Country, a mongoose was born one day who didn‘t want to
fight cobras or anything else. The word spread from mongoose to mongoose
that there was a mongoose who didn‘t want to fight cobras. If he didn‘t
want to fight anything else, it was his own business, but it was the duty
of every mongoose to kill cobras or be killed by cobras.
“Why, asked the peace-like mongoose, and the word went around that
the strange new mongoose was not only pro-cobra and anti-mongoose, but
intellectually curious and against the ideals and traditions of mongoosism.
‘He is crazy,‘ cried the young mongoose‘s father. ‘He is sick,‘ said his
mother. ‘He is a coward,‘ shouted his brothers. ‘He is a mongoose-
sexual,‘ whispered his sisters.
“Strangers who had never laid eyes on the peace-like mongoose
remembered that they had seen him crawling on his stomach or trying on
cobra hoods or plotting the violent overthrow of Mongoosia.
‘I‘m trying to use reason and intelligence,‘ said the strange new
mongoose. ‘Reason is six-sevenths of treason,‘ said one of his neighbors.
‘Intelligence is what the enemy uses,‘ said another.
“Finally, the rumor spread that the mongoose had venom in his sting,
just like a cobra, and he was tried, convicted by a show of paws, and
condemned to banishment.
“Moral? Ashes to ashes and clay to clay; if the enemy doesn‘t get
you, your own folks may.”
