A rat looked through a crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife opening a package. What food might it contain? He was alarmed to discover that it was a rat trap (捕鼠夹). Going back to the farmyard the rat gave a warning: “There is a rat trap in the house, a rat trap in the house!” The chicken raised her head and said: “Excuse me, Mr Rat, I can tell this is a big concern to you, but it is of no business to me. I cannot be bothered with it.” The rat turned to the pig and told him: “There is a rat trap in the house, a rat trap in the house!”“I am so very sorry, Mr. Rat,” sympathized the pig, “but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. I will make sure that you are in my prayers.” The rat turned to the cow. She said, “Like wow, Mr. Rat. A rat trap. I am in grave danger. Duh?” So the rat returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer’s rat trap alone. That very night a sound was heard throughout the house, like the sound of a rat trap catching its prey (猎物). The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see that it was a poisonous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake bit the farmer’s wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital. She returned home with a fever. Now everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet (短柄斧) to the farmyard for the soup’s main ingredient. His wife’s sickness continued so that friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them the farmer killed the pig. The farmer’s wife did not get well. She died, and so many people came for her funeral that the farmer had the cow killed to provide meat for all of them to eat. So the next time you hear that someone is facing a problem and think that it does not concern you, remember that when there is a rat trap in the house, the whole farmyard is at risk. 小题1:The underlined word “dejected” in Paragraph 5 is closest in meaning to .
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