The
mouse trap
A mouse
looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a
package.
“What food might this contain?”The mouse wondered.
However, he was devastated to discover it was a
mouse trap. Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning: “There
is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!”
The
chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, “Mr. Mouse, I can tell
this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be
bothered by it.”
The
mouse turned to the pig and told him, “There is a mouse trap in the house!
There is a mousetrap in the house!” The pig sympathised, but said, “I am so
very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be
assured you are in my prayers.”
The
mouse turned to the cow and said, “There is a mousetrap in the house! There is
a mousetrap in the house!” The cow said, “Wow, Mr. Mouse. I’m sorry for you, but
it’s no skin off my nose.”
So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected,
to face the farmer’s mousetrap alone.
That
very night a sound was heard throughout the house – like the sound of a mousetrap
catching its prey. The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness,
she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The
snake bit the farmer’s wife.
The
farmer rushed her to the hospital and she returned home with a fever. Everyone
knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet
to the farmyard for the soup’s main ingredient.
But his
wife’s sickness continued, so friends and neighbours came to sit with her
around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.
The
farmer’s wife did not get well; she died. So, many people came for her funeral,
that the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them.
The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness.
So, the next
time you hear someone is facing a problem and think it doesn’t concern you, remember
that when one of us is threatened, we are all at risk.
We are
all involved in this journey called life. We must keep an eye out for one another
and make an extra effort to encourage one another.
Each of
us is a vital thread in another person’s tapestry.
