The Acorn and the Pumpkin

Name: The Acorn and the Pumpkin
Author: Jean de La Fontaine

Jean de La Fontaine B1 Fable

A free B1-level English story for language learners, readable online in 7 languages, with an option to listen via the free Storyteller app.

Level: B1
Genres: Fable
Reading time: 2 min
Languages available: EN, VI, ES, ZH, PT, HI, ID

A grumbling villager is certain he could have designed nature better than the Almighty — pairing pumpkins with sturdy oaks and acorns with frail stems — until a nap under a tree teaches him otherwise.

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What God does is done well. Without going round the world to seek a proof of that, I can find one in the pumpkin.

A villager was once struck with the largeness of a pumpkin and the thinness of the stem upon which it grew. "What could the Almighty have been thinking about?" he cried. "He has certainly chosen a bad place for a pumpkin to grow. Eh zounds! Now I would have hung it on one of these oaks. That would have been just as it should be. Like fruit, like tree!

"What a pity, Hodge," said he, addressing himself, "that you were not on the spot to give advice at the Creation which the parson preaches about. Everything would have been properly done then. For instance; wouldn't this acorn, no bigger than my little finger, be better hanging on this frail stem? The Almighty has blundered there surely! The more I think about these fruits and their situations, the more it seems to me that it is all a mistake."

Becoming worried by so much reflection our Hodge cast himself under an oak saying, "A man can't sleep when he has so much brain." Then he at once dropped off into a nap.

Presently an acorn fell plump upon his nose. Starting from sleep, he put his hand up to see what had happened and found the acorn caught in his beard, whilst his nose began to pain and bleed. "Oh, oh!" he cried, "I am bleeding. How would it have been if a heavier mass than this had fallen from the tree: if this acorn had been a pumpkin? The Almighty did not intend that, I see. Doubtless he was right. I understand the reason why perfectly now."

So praising God for all things Hodge took his way home.

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What bothers the villager Hodge about the pumpkin?

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Answer: It is huge but grows on a very thin stem

Hodge is struck by the mismatch between the pumpkin's large size and the thinness of the stem it grows on.

How would Hodge have arranged fruit and trees if he had been in charge of Creation?

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Answer: He would have hung the pumpkin on an oak and put the acorn on the thin stem

Hodge complains he would have hung the pumpkin on a sturdy oak and given the tiny acorn the frail stem instead.

What does Hodge do after tiring himself out with all this thinking?

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Answer: He lies down under an oak tree and falls asleep

Worried by so much reflection, Hodge cast himself under an oak and dropped off into a nap.

What wakes Hodge up and changes his mind?

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Answer: An acorn falling on his nose

An acorn falls plump upon his nose, waking him and making it bleed a little.

What lesson does Hodge take away from the falling acorn?

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Answer: That the Almighty was right to put small acorns on frail stems, since a falling pumpkin would have been far worse

Hodge realizes that if a pumpkin, not an acorn, had fallen on him, the result would have been much worse — so the Almighty's arrangement was wise after all.

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