ave you ever been FEATHERS WIND Fase reTo.o By DIANE ROBITAILLE cong, long ago in a small village there lived a man who was neither young nor old, neither evil nor good, neither ugly nor handsome, neither stupid nor smart, He was an average man. | Hiis name was Rumour ‘One day, as Rumour was speaking to the baker, he heard, or thought he heard, someone say something vicious about one of his | neighbours His eyes lit up. Rumour repeated this bit of news about his neighbour to others | in the village. He told the butcher, who told her brother, who told his wife, who told her neighbour, and so on. Rumour also told his cousin the story, and he told his neighbour, who told her friends, and s0 on. And so on, By sunszt, the whole village knew the story, and everyone was whispering about Rumour's neighbour. | Before very long, the neighbour heard what was being said about her. She was deeply hurt and very upset that such a dreadful and false story about her was swirling around in the village. She wondered who could have spread the story. She told everyone she knew that it wasn’t true. But still many chose to believe what they hhad heard. Distraught and broken-hearted, the neighbour became il. AA very short time later, she packed up her belongings and moved away to another village Respond eral to be, 3 I Wrte a able.Eventually, Rumour learned that the story he had spread was not true, He was filled with regret at having spread such a lie. So he went to the wisest person in the village to find out what he could do to repeir the damage he had caused. "Go to the butcher and buy a chicken,” the wise woman said. "On your way home, pluck its feathers. Place them one by one along the road through the village.” Rumour was disappointed by this advice. It made no < sense. He decided he would follow it anyway, since the \ woman would say nothing else. ‘The next morning, the wise woman approached Rumour. She hed new instructions for him. “Today, walk along the road and gather the feathers you left there yesterday and then come and see me.” Rumour went off to look for the feathers, but could not find a single one. Of course, he thought, the wind has blown all the feathers away. He searched until red stained the evening sky, and managed to find three tattered, dusty feathers stuck in a shrub along the roadside, He returned to the wise worian and held them out to her. “Ahh,” said the wise woman. “It was easy to scatter the feathers on the road. But was it possible to gather them again? That's what gossip is like. It takes no effort to spread tales and lies, bat once gossip spreads, you can never recall it or undo the ‘wrong it caused.” 3A