The Story
Once upon a time, on a cool autumn morning in a cottage at the edge of a green valley, an old woman was baking in her kitchen. She had rolled out the dough, cut it into the perfect shape of a little man, pressed in two raisin eyes and a smiling raisin mouth, added three currant buttons down his chest, and slid him carefully into the hot oven.
The old woman and her husband sat in their chairs and waited for the smell of gingerbread to fill the house. And it did — a warm, spicy, golden smell that made them both feel cheerful. After a little while, the old woman got up to check the oven.
But before she could reach the door, the oven door swung open all by itself, and out jumped a small, perfectly-formed gingerbread man with bright raisin eyes and a wide raisin smile. He looked at the old woman and the old man, laughed a high little laugh, and ran straight out the cottage door and down the road.
"Stop! Stop, little gingerbread man!" cried the old woman. "We want to eat you!"
But the gingerbread man only ran faster, and called back over his crispy shoulder: "Run, run, as fast as you can! You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!"
The old woman and the old man chased him down the road, huffing and puffing, but the gingerbread man was faster, and his little legs carried him farther and farther away.
He ran past a farmer plowing his field. The farmer looked up, dropped his plow, and gave chase. "Stop! Stop, little gingerbread man!" The gingerbread man glanced back and called: "I've run away from a little old woman, and a little old man, and I can run away from you, I can! Run, run, as fast as you can! You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!"
He ran past a butcher at the door of his shop, who wiped his hands on his apron and gave chase too. The gingerbread man called back the same words and ran on. He ran past three schoolchildren eating their lunches on a wall. They shouted and jumped down and ran after him as well. He ran past a dog in a farmyard, who barked and bounded after him. He ran past a cat sunning itself on a fence, who leaped down to join the pursuit.
Behind him ran the old woman, the old man, the farmer, the butcher, the three children, the dog, and the cat — and the gingerbread man ran ahead of all of them, small and crisp and golden and laughing, shouting his refrain: "Run, run, as fast as you can! You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!"
He had never been caught. He was beginning to think he never could be.
At last he came to a wide, swift river. He stopped at the bank, and the sound of all those feet pounding the road behind him grew louder. He had no idea how to swim — he was made of gingerbread, after all, and would dissolve in the water.
Then a voice spoke softly beside him. It was a fox, sitting at the riverbank with his magnificent red tail wrapped around his paws, looking at the gingerbread man with calm amber eyes.
"I can carry you across," said the fox pleasantly. "Climb onto my tail."
The gingerbread man, with the crowd thundering closer behind him, agreed. He climbed onto the fox's tail, and the fox slipped into the river and began to swim.
They were halfway across when the fox said: "You are getting heavy on my tail, little gingerbread man. Climb up to my back so you don't get wet."
The gingerbread man moved to the fox's back. The fox swam on.
"The water is getting deeper," said the fox. "Climb up to my shoulder, it is safer."
The gingerbread man moved to the fox's shoulder.
"The current is very strong here," said the fox. "Climb up to my nose. I will hold you high above the water."
The gingerbread man moved to the very tip of the fox's nose — and with one quick, nimble toss of his head, the fox threw him up into the air and snapped him between his jaws.
And that was the end of the gingerbread man.
The old woman and the old man and the farmer and the butcher and the three children and the dog and the cat all reached the riverbank and stopped, looking at the fox finishing his meal. The fox looked back at them, licked his whiskers, and swam calmly to the other side.
So the gingerbread man ran fast and far, but he could not outrun cleverness — and sometimes, that is the lesson the road teaches.