A 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 and he was devastated to discover it was a mouse-trap.

Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning: “There is a mouse-trap in the house! There is a mouse-trap in the house!”

The chicken said, “I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me.” The mouse turned to the pig and the cow. The pig sympathized, but said, “I am so sorry, but there is nothing I can do about it.” The cow said, “Mr Mouse, I’m sorry for you, but it’s no skin off my nose.”

So, the mouse returned to the house, dejected to face the mouse-trap alone. That very night a sound was heard, like the sound of a mouse-trap catching its prey.

The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see that it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake bit her. The farmer rushed her to the hospital and she returned home with a fever.

Everyone knows that people treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer killed the chicken for soup. But his wife’s sickness continued, so friends came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.

His wife did not get well, she died. So many people came for her funeral; 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, try to offer a helping hand and remember: 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.