"All those animals," the Beggar said, "were once human beings who
instead of fearing God and being kind to their fellowmen passed all
their time fighting and cheating and cursing. The two sows were two
sisters-in-law who hated each other bitterly. The two bulls and the two
rams were neighbors who fought for years and years over the boundary
lines of their farms and now they keep on fighting through eternity. The
two bitches were two sisters who fought until they died over the
inheritance left them by their father. The old man whose hair the oxen
eat was a farmer who always pastured his cattle on his neighbors'
fields. Now he has his reward. The man at whose eyes the ravens peck was
an ungrateful son who mistreated his parents. The man with the awful
thirst that can never be quenched was a drunkard, and the one at whose
lips the apples turn to ashes was a glutton."

So they talked on together, the Poor Man and the Beggar, until it was
late afternoon and the Beggar said:

"And now, dear friend, you will sup with me as I once supped with you."

"Thank you," the Poor Man said, "I will. But let me first go out and see
how my donkey is."

"Very well," the Beggar said, "go. But be sure to come back for I shall
be waiting for you."

So the Poor Man went out the garden gate and looked for his donkey. But
the donkey was gone.

"He must have started home," the Poor Man thought. "I'll hurry and
overtake him."

So he started back afoot the way he had come. He went on and on but saw
no donkey. He crossed the golden bridge and the silver bridge and the
copper bridge and the iron bridge and the stone bridge and last of all
the wooden bridge, but still there was no donkey.

"He must have got all the way home," he thought.

When the Poor Man reached his native village things looked different.
Houses that he remembered had disappeared and others had taken their
places. He couldn't find his own little house at all. He asked the
people he met and they knew nothing about it. And they knew nothing
about him, either, not even his name. And nobody even knew about his
sons. At last he did meet one old man who remembered the family name and
who told him that many years before the last of the sons had gone to
another village to live.

"There's no place here for me," the Poor Man thought. "I better go back
to my friend the Beggar and stay with him. No one else wants me."

So once again he followed the silver tracks all that long way