To the editor:

One day a lion saw a mouse in the jungle. The mouse was about to be eaten by a snake.

“Don’t let the snake eat me,” the mouse pleaded. “One day I can return the favor and help you.”

The lion laughed, “What can you do for me? You have no cards. I am the king of the jungle! Try using diplomacy and negotiate with the snake. You are small and weak. What will you give me for my help?”

The lion’s words humiliated and insulted the mouse. But the lion decided to stomp on the snake and save the mouse anyway.

The next week the lion got a painful splinter in his front right paw. It was in deep. He could not remove the splinter. Agony to walk on! The lion could not run. In severe pain, he hobbled like an old man. A pack of hyenas noticed. They had been watching the lion for a long time. Now they thought they could kill him. The king of the Jungle was doomed. In an instant he went from the most powerful to the most vulnerable.

Just then the mouse he helped a week before came out of the bushes. “Stay still lion, I will pull the splinter,” said the mouse. And the mouse did so with his teeth, then jumped on the lion’s back and together they escaped death by the hyenas.

In life, things can turn on a dime. You never know when you will need your friends.

Ira Weinberg

Saranac Lake