The Unicorn in the Garden

by James Thurber

Once upon a sunny morning a man who sat in a breakfast

nook looked up from his scrambled eggs to see a white
unicorn with a golden horn quietly cropping the roses in
the garden. The man went up to the bedroom where his
wife was still asleep and woke her. "There's a unicorn in
the garden," he said. "Eating roses." She opened one
unfriendly eye and looked at him. "The unicorn is a
mythical beast," she said, and turned her back on him.

The man walked slowly downstairs and out into the garden. The unicorn was still there; now he
was browsing among the tulips. "Here, unicorn," said the man, and he pulled up a lily and
gave it to him. The unicorn ate it gravely. With a high heart, because there was a unicorn in
his garden, the man went upstairs and roused his wife again. "The unicorn," he said, "ate a
lily." His wife sat up in bed and looked at him coldly. "You are a booby," she said, "and I am
going to have you put in the booby-hatch." The man, who had never liked the words "booby"
and "booby-hatch," and who liked them even less on a shining morning when there was a
unicorn in the garden, thought for a moment. "We'll see about that," he said. He walked over to
the door. "He has a golden horn in the middle of his forehead," he told her. Then he went back
to the garden to watch the unicorn; but the unicorn had gone away. The man sat down among
the roses and went to sleep.

As soon as the husband had gone out of the house, the wife got up and dressed as fast as she
could. She was very excited and there was a gloat in her eye. She telephoned the police and
she telephoned a psychiatrist; she told them to hurry to her house and bring a strait-jacket.
When the police and the psychiatrist arrived they sat down in chairs and looked at her, with
great interest. "My husband," she said, "saw a unicorn this morning." The police looked at the
psychiatrist and the psychiatrist looked at the police. "He told me it ate a lily," she said. The
psychiatrist looked at the police and the police looked at the psychiatrist. "He told me it had a
golden horn in the middle of its forehead," she said. At a solemn signal from the psychiatrist,
the police leaped from their chairs and seized the wife. They had a hard time subduing her,
for she put up a terrific struggle, but they finally subdued her. Just as they got her into the
strait-jacket, the husband came back into the house.

"Did you tell your wife you saw a unicorn?" asked the police. "Of course not," said the
husband. "The unicorn is a mythical beast." "That's all I wanted to know," said the psychiatrist.
"Take her away. I'm sorry, sir, but your wife is as crazy as a jaybird." So they took her away,
cursing and screaming, and shut her up in an institution. The husband lived happily ever
after.
There are words in this story that might be new for you, like the ones in bold. However, you
can understand the story without looking up each new word in a dictionary.

Do the exercises of Reading comprehension first and then work with guessing the meaning
from the context.
Checking reading comprehension:
From paragraph 1 and 2
1.   Write True or False after each statement.       
a.   The man found it hard to believe there could be a unicorn in his garden. ______
b.   The wife didn’t believe in unicorns. ______
c.   The wife told her husband he was stupid. ______
From paragraph 3
2.   Change the underlined words to make the following statements true. Write the correct
word on the lines at the end of each statement.
      a.   The wife was worried when she called the police and the psychiatrist. ___________
      b.   She told them to come to her house when they had time. ___________
      c.   The psychiatrist leapt up and grabbed the wife. ___________
       
From paragraph 4
Underline the option that correctly completes each statement.
 3.   The husband said he had never seen a unicorn because...
a. he didn’t like psychiatrists and did not want to tell them the truth.
b. he was hoping to get rid of his wife by not telling them the truth.
c. he didn’t remember what had happened to him in the morning.
d. he had never seen a unicorn and had told his wife a lie, knowing she would
call the psychiatrist and be shut up in an institution.

Circle the letter of the option that correctly completes the statement. 
4.   At the end of the story...
a. the husband succeeds in getting rid of his wife.
b. the husband succeeds in convincing everybody that unicorns exist.
b. the wife succeeds in making her husband admit he’d never seen a unicorn.
c. the wife succeeds in getting rid of his husband.
Vocabulary work
Follow the logic to guess the meaning of each word. The first one is an example.

1. What’s a breakfast nook?

You read in the text: “…a man who sat in a breakfast nook looked up from his scrambled
eggs…” so, because of the context, you can tell that a breakfast nook is: a place where
people sit to eat their breakfast.

2. What’s cropping?
From the text you know that the unicorn was cropping the roses, and if you continue reading,
later the man tells her wife that the unicorn was eating the roses. So, you can tell that
cropping is __________________.

3. What’s browsing?
From the text you know the unicorn was browsing among the tulips (tulips are other flowers,
like roses and lilies). If the unicorn was eating roses, he might eat other flowers too. Besides,
you probably have seen this word in another context; in internet, what do you use a browser
for? So, you can tell that browsing is ______________________.

4. What’s pulled up?

From the text you know that the man pulled up a lily to give it to the unicorn. A lily is a
flower, so what did the man do to the flower to give it to the unicorn?
To pull up something is ______________________________________________________.

5. What’s gravely?
From the text you know that the unicorn ate the lily gravely. So, gravely is and adverb
describing how he ate the lily. In this case, this information is not relevant to the story, so you
can keep reading without any problem. Anyway, make a guess and write 2 words on how you
thing the unicorn ate the lily. ______________________ , _______________________.

6. What’s with a high heart?

You read in the text: “With a high heart, because there was a unicorn in his garden…” So,
you can see that high heart is describing how the man was feeling. How do you think he was
feeling? You can see that for the man, having a unicorn in his garden is a great experience,
and so you can tell that with a high heart means ___________________.

7. What’s roused?
You can read in the text:” the man went upstairs and roused his wife again…” You can see
that roused is a verb in past tense. And because it says again, if you look back in the text you
can see that previously the man had gone upstairs and woken her up.
Roused is a synonym of ______________________________.
8. What’s booby?
Be careful! This is a false cognate. It sounds like a word in Spanish but it’s something
different!!!
In the text, the woman tells the man he’s a booby because he has told her that there’s a
unicorn in the garden. What would any people thing of someone that is seeing unicorns in his
garden?
So, you can tell that booby is and adjective to describe people that are ______________.

9. What’s booby-hatch?
In the text the woman tells the man that because he is a booby, he will put him in a booby-
hatch. You can get from this sentence that a booby-hatch is __________________________
___________________________________________________________________________

10. What’s a gloat?

You can read in the text: “She was very excited and there was a gloat in her eye.”
What can you see in the eye of someone that is very excited? Think about cartoons, or anime,
what do they put in the eye to show that someone is very excited?
A gloat is ___________________________________________________________________

11. What’s a strait-jacket?

In the text the woman asks the psychiatrist to bring a straight-jacket, and at the end the police
gets her into the straight-jacket to take her away.
You know what a jacket is, and you know what a psychiatrist do, so you can easily infer that a
straight-jacket is
_____________________________________________________________

12. What’s solemn?

This is a true cognate (a word that sound like a word in Spanish, and means the same in
English). The word in Spanish is “solemne.” If you know this word in Spanish, you have the
answer, but if you don’t really know it’s meaning in Spanish, you can analyze the context and
make a good guess.
In the text you read: “At a solemn signal from the psychiatrist, the police leaped from their
chairs and seized the wife.”
Solemn is describing the signal that the psychiatrist made to the police officers. How do you
think it was? The psychiatrist is the one that is in charge of the situation, the one with authority.
So he was ____________________ in his words and his actions.

13. What´s leaped?

Work with the same sentence from the text, as for number 12.
You can see that leaped is a verb in past. The police officers were sitting in their chairs, so
what did they do?
To leap means _________________________________

14. What’s seized?

Work with the same sentence from the text, as for number 12.
You can see that seized is a verb in past. What did the police officers do to the wife?
To seize means ___________________________________

15. What’s subduing?

In the text you read: “They had a hard time subduing her, for she put up a terrific struggle,
but they finally subdued her.”
You can see that subduing is a verb ending in -ing. The wife was not happy with what was
happening, and I’m sure that she was not cooperating with the police officers, so the police
officers had to put her into the straight-jacket against her will.
To Subdue means ________________________________________________

16. What’s struggle?

Work with the same sentence from the text, as for number15.
The wife was definitely not cooperating with the police officers. She didn’t want them to put
her into the straight-jacket, so she was ____________________________________.

17. What’s as crazy as a jaybird?

In the text you read: “your wife is as crazy as a jaybird.” This is an idiom and it means the
same as the idiom in Spanish “Mas loca que una cabra”…but a jaybird is not a goat!! A jaybird
is a kind of bird. In English goats are not considered crazy, but jaybirds are.
Be careful when you try to translate idioms because they don’t make sense in another
language.
So, as crazy as a jaybird is used when you want to say that a person is _________________

18. What’s cursing?

In the text you read: “So they took her away, cursing and screaming, and shut her up in an
institution.”
You know the situation: the wife is into a straight-jacket, so she cannot move. She is really
angry because the things didn’t go as she had planned them. Actually she wanted his
husband to be in her place. You also know the word screaming, so you can tell that cursing is
___________________

19. What’s shut her up?

Work with the same sentence from the text as in number 18.
This is a phrasal verb. What happened to the wife? What other verb can you use instead of
shut her up? _____________________________________

20. What’s among?

This preposition is used twice in the text. Its meaning is similar to between. When do you
use between and when do you use among?
___________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________