KidLit Forum

The Unicorn in the Garden
By James Thurber

“The Unicorn in the garden” is a short story written by James Thurber. The most famous of Thurber’s humorous modern fables, it first appeared in The New Yorker on October 31, 1939.
The fable is about a husband who sees a unicorn in the family garden and tells his wife about it. She ridicules him, telling him “ the unicorn is a mythical beast” and calls him a “ booby”. Ehen he persists, she threatens him to send him to the “booby hatch” ( the mental institution). He persists, and she summons the authorities. However, after she tells them what her husband saw, they force her into a strait jacket. They then ask the husband if he told his wife he had seen a unicorn. He tells them that he has not, because “ the unicorn is a mythical beast”. Thus they take the wife away instead, and “ the husband lived happily ever after”.
The moral of the fable is “Don’t count your boobies until they are hatched” meaning “Don’t count on things to turn out exactly as you planned them.”