The Small One (book)

The Small One is a 1947 Christmas novelette written by Charles Tazewell and illustrated by Franklin Whitman about a young boy who has to sell his donkey named Small One. It was adapted into the Disney featurette in Christmas 1978.

The story starts with Padre who tells his boy Pablo about how donkeys aren't stubborn after Pablo is frustrated with the attitude of his donkey Cupido who is doing nothing to work for him. So Padre tells the story that happened many miles from where they live in El Camino Del Notre Old Mexico. Small One was an old donkey who belonged to a woodcutter whose son was kinder to him. One day the boy's father tells him to sell Small One to the tanner as he feels there is no use for him as he is too old to work. The boy insists not to take him to the tanners but his father tells him not to cry over a donkey. The boy realises there's no use arguing so he goes off to town to sell Small One but doesn't tell his father that he will sell him elsewhere. The first place he sees is an auction where the bidder is selling horses. The boy asks the bidder to sell his donkey but the bidder refuses and he and the crowd make fun of Small One which upsets the boy who sets off to see who else would buy him.

The boy and Small One both feel hopeless by sundown and decide to go to the tanners after all. Just then the boy meets a nice man who asks him if he can buy Small One as he and his wife have a long way to go and she isn't very well. The boy sells the man Small One for one piece of silver and hurries to the gates before the guards close it. The boy promises Small One that when he grows up he will buy him again and keep him. The man explains to the guards at the gate that his name is Joseph, his wife's name is Mary and they are heading to Bethlehem so they make their way into the distance. In the end the boy says his last goodbyes to his friend and Small One, as told by Padre, made it all the way to Bethlehem with Joseph and Mary and saw the king born despite how he was made fun of he became part of the Christmas miracle. In the end Pablo and Padre listen wondering whether it was a donkey's hooves or to the sound of the church bells rehearsing the chimes for Christmas morning but only Cupido knew what it really was.

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