The fable is one of the few by La Fontaine without a certain origin, although it is generally acknowledged that it owes something to a piece of street farce by Tabarin earlier in the 17th century. Beginning with the statement that "God's creation is well made", it recounts how a country bumpkin questions intelligent design in the creation by supposing that it would be better if oaks bore pumpkins and feeble vines supported acorns. He falls asleep beneath the tree and is awakened by the fall of an acorn, taking the comparative lack of injury he suffers as sufficient evidence of divine providence.[1] It has been surmised, however, that the ironical author's real target is the weakness of such moral reasoning.[2] This appears to be substantiated by the fact that the argument employed is based on a joke in a farce that was not meant to be taken seriously.