There was a salt vendor in a village. He used to buy salt from a nearby town.

He
had a donkey to carry this salt load. There were many streams to be crossed to
reach the town.

One day, the vendor was returning after his purchase.

The donkey was loaded with salt bags. While they were crossing a stream,
accidentally the donkey slipped and fell into the stream. A lot of salt got
dissolved in the water. When the donkey got up the load became very light.

From that day, whenever the vendor returned from town after salt purchase, the
donkey began to tumble half-way across one stream or the other. The vendor became
suspicious.

Once the vendor purchased bales of cotton and loaded his donkey with bales of
cotton. The donkey felt the load to be unusually light. He thought "Today, I am
going to tumble and this load is going to become much lighter".

On their way home, as usual, the donkey tumbled and fell into a stream. But alas!
When the donkey tried to get up, the load pulled the donkey down. The cotton had
absorbed water and become heavier.

The vendor gave hard beatings to make the donkey get up and walk. From then on, the
donkey never tumbled while crossing streams.

MORAL : Avoiding work leads to more work.

Vijay and Raju were friends. On a holiday they went into a forest. They were
enjoying the beauty of nature. Suddenly they saw a bear coming at them. They were
frightened.

Raju who knew climbing trees ran up to a tree and climbed up quickly. He did not
think of Vijay. Vijay did not know tree climbing.

Vijay thought for a second. He had heard animals do not prefer dead bodies. He fell
to the ground and held his breath. The bear sniffed him and thought he was dead.
So, he went away.

Raju asked Vijay," What did the bear whisper into your ears?"

Vijay replied, "The bear asked me to keep away from friends like you" and went on
his way.

In a pretty little house, there once lived a
caps and the finest kerchief you ever saw in
washing and scrubbing and baking and sewing!
that she was the most hard-working lady they
whole village.
neat old widow who wore the cleanest
your life. She was very fond of
Everybody who knew her used to say
had ever seen and an example to the

This good woman had two little girls living with her whom she was always trying to
make as clean and neat as herself. She taught them how to knead bread, cook rice
and meals. She also taught them to spin fine thread on their spinning wheels. Every
morning, the moment the big brown cockerel in the yard gave his first crow, she
would get out of the bed, go to the room where the little girls slept and shake
them until they woke.

"Get up! Get up!" she would say. "Don't you hear the cockerel crowing outside? The
Sun will be shining over the hill in a moment. Nobody in this house must stay in
bed when once the cockerel has crowed!"

The little girls were always dreadfully sleepy and did not want to get up in the
least. But the bustling old woman would stand over them, till they got out of bed,
yawning and blinking their eyes. Then she would start her household chores, telling
them to wash and dress and to follow her into the kitchen as quickly as they could.

Now one of the things the little girls had to do was to feed the poultry - the big
brown cockerel among the others. He was rather a greedy bird and always ate a lot
of the scraps and corn that were thrown on the ground. The old lady would stand at
the kitchen door to watch the feeding and the more the cockerel ate, the better she
was pleased.

"Is he not a fine bird?" she would say to the little girls. "Be sure and give him
the best bits of food. If he doesn't crow we would always be oversleeping, for
there would be nobody to wake us in the morning!"

Then the little girls would look at each other under their eyelashes and pout. For
they both hated the brown bird which tried to wake everybody at sunrise when it
would be so much nicer to sleep on until eight or nine o clock.

At last, one day, when the cockerel seemed to have crowed even earlier than usual,
they decided they could stand it no longer. They waited until their mother had gone
to market… then they caught the poor brown cockerel and wrung his neck! After that
they buried him as quickly as they could in the field on the other side of the
fence. Then, rather frightened at what they had done, they set to work to cook for
the lunch.

The lady came home and found that her dear bird was missing. She searched for the
cockerel everywhere while the girls also pretended as much so that their mother
might not suspect them.

The lady missed the cockerel very much. But when they went to bed, however, they
the girls told each other how glad they were that they had killed the horrid bird
at last.

"Now" they said to each other, "we shall have a little peace. How lovely it will be
to sleep as long as we want to with no crowing to wake our mother in the morning!"

They cuddled down into their pillows and fell asleep. But in the middle of the
night or so it seemed to them, the old lady came to their bedside in her nightcap,
carrying a lighted candle!

'Get up! Get up!" she said to them all in a bustle. We have no cockerel to wake us
now and it will never do to oversleep! The dawn has not broken yet…I know! Bui it
will break presently and without the crowing in the yard, we shall not even know
that day has come. Get up! Get up! Follow me into the kitchen as quickly as
possible!"

How sad and disappointed those little maidens were! But they were obliged to do as
their mother told them. So they got up and stalled scrubbing and washing and
spinning by candle light, sleepier than they had ever been in their lives.

And as the old lady has been too fond of that cockerel to wish to buy another to
take his place, she went on waking the little girls in the middle of the night. She
was insisting on getting them up to work as no single minute of the coming daylight
should be wasted.

Oh, how those two blinking, yawning little girls wished that they had never killed
the big brown cockerel!

Let us enjoy reading this story of The Shepherd Boy and The Wolf.

T here was a village on the outskirts of a forest. A shepherd boy used to take his
herd of sheep across the fields to the lawns near the forest.

One day he felt very boring. He wanted to have fun. So he cried aloud "Wolf, Wolf.
The wolf is carrying away a lamb". Farmers working in the fields came running and
asked, "Where is the wolf?". The boy laughed and replied "It was just a fun. Now
get going all of you".

The boy played the trick for quite a number of times in the next few days.

After some days as the boy, perched up on a tree, as singing a song, there came an
wolf. The boy cried loudly "Wolf, Wolf, The wolf is carrying a lamb away." There
was no one to come. The boy shouted "Help! Wolf! Help!" Still no one came to his
help. The villagers thought that the boy was playing mischief again.

The wolf carried a lamb away.

Once upon a time there was a poor servant girl who was industrious and loved
cleanliness. Everyday she dusted the house and shook out the sweepings on a great
heap before the door.

One morning, just as she was going to throw them away, she saw a letter lying among
them and as she could not read, she put her broom in a corner and took it to her
master. It contained an invitation from the elves asking the girl to stand
godmother to one of their children.

The girl did not know what to do…but at last after much consideration, she
consented, for the little men would not easily take a refusal. So there came three
elves who conducted her to a hollow mountain where they lived. Everything was very
small of course, but all more neat and elegant than one could tell.

The mother lay in a bed of ebony studded with pearls and the coverings were all
wrought with gold. The cradle was made of ivory and the bath was of gold. The girl
stood godmother and afterwards wished to return home, but the little elves pressed
her earnestly to stay three days longer. So she remained passing the time in
pleasure and play, for the eves behaved very kindly to her.

At the end of the time she prepared to return home…but first they filled her
pockets with gold and then led her out of the hill. As soon as she reached the
house, she took the broom which still stood in the corner and went on with her
sweeping…and presently out of the house came some strange people who asked her who
she was and what she was doing there.

Then she found it that it was not three days as she had supposed…but seven years,
that she had passed with the little elves in the hill. But now she had enough gold
to spend the rest of her life in peace.

MORAL : People who are hardworking are rewarded in the end.

In this story the little girl took care of her master and served them in affection
and full consideration. As reward for her sincerity, she was rewarded with a huge
pile of gold which was enough for her to lead a life of comforts and happiness. The
moral of this story is that we too should do our work with full consideration and
sincerity so that we will be treated as qualified humans.