Once upon a time, there was a little boy who lost his mother and father when he was very young.Since he had no one to take care of him, the local authorities arranged for the boy to live with a rich family.This family promised that they would feed him and bring him up.
But this family actually had a bad heart; they were especially stingy, and they could never give the boy anything good to eat.Even if he ate only a little bread, the family would scold him angrily.Not only did the boy have to work, but he was often beaten by them, so he was really hard and aggrieved.
One day, the family asked the boy to look after a hen and a flock of chicks.It was a simple task, but he didn’t expect anything to go wrong.The hen ran away from the fence with her chicks, only to have an eagle fly down just in time and grab the hen in one fell swoop.
When the boy saw this, he hurriedly shouted, “Thief!Thief!Someone come quickly!”But no one could help him, and the eagle flew away with the hen in its mouth.The rich man heard the noise and rushed over, and when he found the hens gone, he was so angry that he immediately beat the boy so badly that he could not move for two days.
Next, the boy had to take care of the motherless chicks by himself.But it was hard to keep an eye on the chicks as they were running around everywhere.The boy thought of a solution: he got a rope and tied all the chicks together.That way, there was no way for the eagle to grab them one by one.
However, this was not really a good idea.Because when the chicks were tied together, it was very inconvenient for them to walk around, falling over.The boy also had to keep watching them, running this way for a while and that way for a while, which was exhausting.Before long he was so tired that he sat down on the ground and fell asleep.
Then the eagle came again, and this time it carried off the whole flock of chicks.By the time the boy woke up, it was too late.When the rich man went home and found the chicks gone, he got even more angry and beat the boy so hard that he couldn’t get out of bed for days.
When the boy was finally able to walk, the rich man said to him, “You are such a stupid person that you can’t do anything right.I think you’d better stop herding sheep and go deliver things for me.”
So the rich man gave the boy a basket with a few bunches of grapes and a letter to deliver to the judge.
The boy was so hungry and thirsty on the way that he couldn’t help himself and secretly ate two bunches of grapes.When he arrived at the judge’s place, the judge opened the basket and found that two bunches were missing, so he asked him what happened.
The boy answered honestly, “I’m sorry, I was so hungry that I ate two bunches.”The judge nodded, then returned a letter and had a few more bunches of grapes redelivered.
The second time, the rich man asked the boy to deliver the grapes and the letter again.This time, the boy was still hungry and couldn’t resist eating two more bunches.But he learned to be smart this time, and first took the letter out and put it under a rock, and then sat himself down on the rock, thinking: as long as the letter can’t see me eating the grapes, it won’t complain.
But when he got to the judge, the judge again found two bunches of grapes missing, and asked him if he had stolen them again.The boy was surprised and said, “How did you know?I hid the letter under the stone, it should not see me ah!”
The judge laughed and cried, thinking that the boy was too naive, so he wrote another letter to the rich man, saying that although the boy didn’t know what he was doing, he was very honest, and hoped that the rich man would be nicer to him in the future and teach him how to behave.
When the rich man received the letter, he did not care at all.He said to the boy, “If you want to eat, you have to work, and if you make another mistake, I will teach you a lesson with a stick.”
The next day, the rich man gave the boy a new task: to cut up two bales of dry straw and make it into fodder for the horses.He also threatened the boy, “I’ll be back at five o’clock to check, and if you haven’t done it, I’ll beat you hard.”
When he had finished, the rich man took his wife and maid to the fair, leaving the boy with only a small piece of bread for lunch.
The boy sat down on a stool and began to work desperately.He sweated as he cut the straw.To cool off a little, he took off his jacket and casually threw it on the pile of straw next to him.
He was cutting so fast that he didn’t even notice that his own clothes were cut in with it.By the time he realized it, it was already too late.His clothes were cut into pieces and could not be mended.He was so scared that he screamed, “It’s over, it’s over, I’m dead!That bad man will surely beat me to death!”
The boy thought of something he had heard the rich man’s wife say earlier, “I have a bottle of poison hidden under my bed.”In fact, that was a deliberate attempt on her part to scare people, and the bottle was filled with honey.
The boy really thought it was poison, so he got under the bed and took the bottle out and drank it all in one gulp.As he drank, he thought, “People say poison is bitter, but why do I think it’s so sweet?No wonder she said she wanted to die.”
After drinking it, the boy sat down on a chair and waited for the poison to kick in.But after a long time, not only did he not die, but he felt more energetic in his body.He was a bit puzzled, “This can’t be poison, can it?Maybe that bottle of wine is the real poison.”
He remembered that the rich man had said that he had a bottle of “insecticide” at home, so he went and drank it.It wasn’t really insecticide, but a bottle of Hungarian wine.
The boy drank it all in one gulp and felt sure he would not survive.He staggered to the churchyard and lay down in a freshly dug grave, thinking he was probably dead.
That night, a nearby hotel was buzzing with a wedding.The boy heard the music in a daze and thought he was really in heaven.Then he passed out completely.
The next morning, he was found dead.It turned out that he had drunk too much strong wine, coupled with the cold night weather, and finally collapsed in the grave never woke up.
When the rich man heard that the boy was dead, he was very frightened and worried that he would be taken to jail.The more he thought about it, the sadder he became, and finally he fainted.
His wife, who was cooking oil in the kitchen at the time, saw her husband fall down and rushed over to save him.As a result, the oil in the pot accidentally spilled and ignited a fire, and the whole house burned down.The family became destitute from then on, living a life of poverty and being tormented by their conscience all the time.
What does this story tell us*
This story may seem a bit sad, but it tells a lot of important truths:
- Good people won’t be bullied for too long: although the boy suffered a lot in the beginning, he never turned bad, but insisted on telling the truth and doing the right thing.
- Bad people will get what they deserve in the end: the rich man and his wife did a lot of bad things, and in the end, they not only lost their house, but also lived in pain for the rest of their lives.
- Honesty is more important than cleverness: although the boy sometimes has simple ideas and even a little stupid, he never lies, which is the most worthwhile thing for us to learn.
- Don’t give up so easily: even if you encounter difficulties, you have to work hard like the boy and don’t be discouraged even if you fail.
Although this story is a fairy tale, the characters and the plot in it are very real, reminding us to be a decent, kind and brave person in life.
