“A Wise Old Owl”
There was an old owl that lived in an oak
tree. Every day, he observed incidents that
occurred around him.
Yesterday, he watched as a young boy helped
an older man carry a heavy basket. Today, he saw
a young girl shouting at her mother. The more he
saw, the less he spoke.
As the days went on, he spoke less but heard
more. The old owl heard people talking and telling
stories.
He heard a woman saying an elephant jumped
over a fence. He heard a man saying that he had
never made a mistake.
The old owl had seen and heard what
happened to people. Some became better, and
some became worse. But the old owl in the tree
had become wiser each day.
“A Glass of Milk”
There once was a poor boy that spent his
days going door-to-door selling newspapers to pay
for school. One day, as he walked his route, he
started feeling low and weak. The poor boy was
starving, so he began to ask for nourishment at
each home he stopped at.
The poor boy was denied every time until he
reached the door of a young girl. He asked for a
glass of water, but seeing his poor state, the girl
returned with a glass of milk. The boy asked how
much he owed her for the milk, but she refused
payment.
Years later, the girl, who was now a grown
woman fell sick. She went from doctor to doctor,
but no one could cure her. Finally, she went to the
best doctor in town.
The doctor spent months treating her until
she was finally cured. Despite her happiness, she
was afraid she couldn’t afford to pay the bill. But,
when the hospital handed her the bill, it read,
“Paid in full, with a glass of milk.”
“ The Ants and the Grasshopper”
One bright autumn day, a family of ants was
busy working in the warm sunshine. They were
drying out the grain they had stored up during the
summer when a starving grasshopper came up.
With his fiddle under his arm, the grasshopper
humbly begged for a bite to eat.
“What!” cried the ants, “Haven’t you stored
any food away for the winter? What in the world
were you doing all summer?”
“I didn’t have time to store any food before
winter,” the grasshopper whined. “I was so busy
making music that the summer flew by.”
The ants simply shrugged and said, “Making
music, were you? Very well, now dance!” The ants
then turned their backs on the grasshopper and
returned to work.
“Controlling Anger”
Once, there was a young boy. This boy had
problems controlling his anger. When he got
angry, he would say the first thing that came to
mind, even if it affected people.
One day, his father gifted him a hammer and a
bundle of nails, then said, “Whenever you get mad,
hammer a nail into the backyard fence.”
The boy used up half of his nails in the first
few days. Over the following weeks, he used up
fewer nails until his temper was under control.
The father then asked the young boy to remove a
nail for each day he didn’t lose his temper.
On the day when the boy had removed his last
nail, his father told him, “You have done good,
boy. But can you see the holes in the wall? The
fence is never going to be the same. Likewise,
when you say mean things in anger, you’ll leave a
scar.”
