A Hole in the Fence
In a small village, a little boy lived with his father and mother. He was the only son for them. The parents of the little boy were very depressed due to his bad temper. The boy used to get angry very soon and taunt others with his words. His bad temper made him fall for angry words. He scolded kids, neighbours and even his friends due to anger. He invited all worries for his parents through the verbal usage. While he forgot what he spoke in anger, his friends and neighbours avoided him.
His mother and father consoled him in many ways to give up his anger and develop kindness. Unfortunately, all their attempts failed. Finally, the boy’s father came up with an idea.
One day, his father gave him a huge bag of nails. He asked his son to hammer one nail to the fence every time he became angry and to lose his temper. The little boy found it hilarious and accepted to do what his father said.
The nails drove him to hammer in the fence for 30 times on the first day! Every time he lost his temper, he ran to the fence and hammered a nail. In the next few days, the number of nails hammered on the fence was reduced to half. The little boy found it very difficult to hammer the nails and decided to control his temper.
Gradually, the number of nails hammered to the fence was reduced and the day arrived when no nail was hammered! Yet, the boy did not lose his temper. He told his father that it was several days that he did not hammer any nail and he did not lose his temper!
Now, his father told him to remove the nails every day as he had controlled his anger. Several days passed and the boy was able to pull out most of the nails from the fence. However, there remained a few nails that the boy could not pull out.
The boy told his father about the same. The father appreciated him and asked him pointing to the hole, ‘What do you see there?’
The boy replied, ‘a hole in the fence!’
He told the boy, “The nails were your bad temper and they were hammered on people. You can remove the nails but still see the holes in the fence. Again, you cannot pull out a few nails. The fence never look the same! It has scars all over! You can stab a man with a knife, but the wound will remain there forever. Your bad temper and anger were like that! Words are more painful than physical abuse! Use words for good. Use them to embrace the relationships. Use them to show your heart!”
A Merchant and his Donkey
Short Stories - A Merchant and his DonkeyOne beautiful spring morning, a merchant loaded his donkey with bags of salt to go to the market in order to sell them. The merchant and his donkey were walking along together. They had not walked far when they reached a river on the road.
Unfortunately, the donkey slipped and fell into the river and noticed that the bags of salt loaded on his back became lighter.
There was nothing the merchant could do, except return home where he loaded his donkey with more bags of salt
. As they reached the slippery riverbank, now deliberately, the donkey fell into the river and wasted all the bags of salt on its back again.
The merchant quickly discovered the donkey’s trick. He then returned home again but re-loaded his donkey with bags of sponges.
The foolish, tricky donkey again set on its way. On reaching the river he again fell into the water. But instead of the load becoming lighter, it became heavier.
Cocoon and the Butterfly
Many of us know that a beautiful and colourful butterfly comes from an unappealing worm! Here is the story of a butterfly that was never able to live a life like a butterfly!
One day, a man saw a cocoon. He loved butterflies and had a craze for its wonderful combination of colours. In fact, he used to spend a lot of time around butterflies. He knew how a butterfly would struggle to transform from an ugly caterpillar into a beautiful one.
He saw a cocoon with tiny opening. It meant that the butterfly was trying to make its way to enjoy its world. He decided to sit over and watch how the butterfly would come out of the cocoon. He was watching the butterfly struggling to break the shell for several hours. He spent almost more than 10 hours with the cocoon and the butterfly. The butterfly had been struggling very hard for hours to come out through the tiny opening. Unfortunately, even after continuous attempts for several hours, there was no progress. It seemed that the butterfly tried its best and could not give any more try.
The man, who had a passion and love for butterflies decided to help the butterfly. He got a pair of scissors and tweaked the cocoon to make larger opening for the butterfly and removed the remaining cocoon. The butterfly emerged without any struggle!
Unfortunately, the butterfly looked no longer beautiful and had a swollen body with small and withered wings.
The man was happy that he made the butterfly come out of the cocoon without any more struggles. He continued to watch the butterfly and he was quite eager to watch the butterfly fly with its beautiful wings.
He thought that at any time, the butterfly might expand the wings, shrink the body and the wings could support the body. Unfortunately, neither the wings expanded or enlarged nor the swollen body reduced.
Unfortunately, the butterfly just crawled around with withered wings and huge body. It was never able to fly all through its life.
Although the man did it with good intention, only going through the struggles the butterfly would have emerged like any other beautiful butterflies! The continuous effort from the butterfly to come out of its cocoon would let the fluid stored in the body convert into wings. Thus, the body would become lighter and smaller and the wings would be beautiful and large.
If we don’t want to undergo any struggle, we won’t be able to fly!
Christmas Surprise
It was two days before Christmas. Harry, Cornelius, Monty and I were busy building a snowma
n when Fritz appeared with his little niece Emily and introduced her.
“Emily is from the South and has never seen snow before,” Fritz told us. “She doesn’t know much about our winters.”
It turned out Emily also didn’t know much about Christmas.”Who is Santa Claus, Waldo?” she asked me, shivering in the cold air.
“Santa Claus,” I explained, “brings presents and toys to human children at Christmas time.”
“Does he also bring presents to animal children?” Emily asked.
Short Stories - Christmas Surprise_Pic2“Well,” I said, “he hasn’t been around this part of the forest for many years. I guess he is too busy visiting all the human children to have much time left for animals.”
“Do you think he will come if I write to him?” Emily asked.
“I don’t think so,” said Monty. “I’ve never seen him, myself.”
“Neither have I,” Harry added, shaking his head.
“You see. Santa Claus is only for human children,” Fritz said to Emily. “So forget about the whole idea. Let’s go home now before you catch a cold.”
Change Yourself and not The World
Long ago, people happily lived under the rule of a king. The people of the kingdom were very happy as they had a very prosperous life with abundance of wealth and no misfortunes.
The king decided to go on a travel to visit places of historical importance and pilgrim centres at distant places. He decided to travel by foot to interact with his people and accompany them. People of distant places were so happy to have a conversation with their king and they were proud that their king was so kind with a good heart!
After several weeks, he returned to the palace. He was quite happy that he visited many pilgrim centres and could see his fellow people leading a propitious life. However, he had regret.
He had intolerable pain in his feet as it was his first trip by foot to longer distance. He complained to his ministers that the roads weren’t comfortable and were very stony. He could not tolerate the pain as he walked all the way through the rough path.
He said he was very much worried about the people who used to walk along those roads as it would be painful for them too!
He made an order to cover the road of the whole country with leather so that people might feel comfortable, immediately.
The king thought that he had to change this for the betterment and happiness of the people.
His ministers were stunned to hear his order as it would destroy the life of thousands of cows to get the sufficient quantity of leather and it would cost a huge amount of money also.
A wise man from the ministry came to the king and said that he had another idea.
The king asked - what was his alternative idea. The minister told, ‘Why do you want to kill the holy animal cow to cover the road with leather? Rather, you can just have a piece of leather cut in appropriate shape to cover your feet?’
The king was very much surprised by his suggestion
and applauded the minister. He ordered for a pair of leather shoes for him and requested the countrymen to wear shoes.
Fools
It was a cold and silent night. The weather was freezing. A group of monkeys were on a tree. They were clinging to its branches. One of the monkeys said, “I wish we could find some fire. It will help us to keep warm”.
Suddenly they noticed a flock of fireflies. One of the young monkeys thought it was fire.
He caught a firefly. He put it under a dry leaf and started blowing at it.
Some other monkeys also joined in his effort.
A sparrow came flying to its nest. The monkeys were sitting on the same tree. She noticed what they were doing. The sparrow laughed. She said, “Hey silly monkeys that is a firefly, not real fire”.
The sparrow continued: “I think all of you should take shelter in a cave”. The monkeys did not listen to the sparrow. They continued to blow at our poor firefly.
After some time the monkeys became very tired. Now they realized what the sparrow had said was correct.
They set free the firefly and moved to a nearby cave.
The Hungry Fox who got Caught in the Tree Trunk
Once upon a time, there was a hungry fox that was looking for something to eat. He was very hungry. No matter how hard he tried, the fox could not find food. Finally he went to the edge of the forest and searched there for food. Suddenly he caught sight of a big tree with a hole in it.
Inside the hole was a package. The hungry fox immediately thought that there might be food in it, and he became very happy. He jumped into the hole and when he opened the package, he saw there were a lot of food, bread, meat and fruit in it!
An old woodcutter had placed the food in the tree trunk while he cut down trees in the forest. He was going to eat it for his lunch.
The fox happily began to eat. After the fox had finished eating, he felt thirsty and decided to leave the trunk and drink some water from a nearby spring. However, no matter how hard he tried, he could not get out of the hole. Do you know why? Yes, the fox had eaten so much food that he became too big to fit through the hole.
The fox was very sad and upset. He told himself, “I wish that I had thought a little before jumping into the hole.”