Once upon a time when the sun shone scarlet and the grass glittered green, there was a farmer, known as Aesop, who owned a farm containing two chickens, three cows, three sheep and his most prized possession, his goat. The lucky farmer received: eggs, milk, meat, wool and cheese! He would sell bits of his goodies, which he received from his animals, for other things he didn’t own, like wheat and oats.
The farmer would always treat his animals equally but when the goat came he would always get the most attention from the farmer. The farmer won the goat in a raffle draw so the goat became the most important. When the other animals were getting groomed, they would have it for five minutes but the goat was special so he had fifteen minutes. The goat, as you would expect, loved his life with the farmer and he then showed off in front of the other animals, boasting about the extra treats he would receive. Clearly, the animals were annoyed and did not like this.
One day, the other animals thought of a plan to teach the greedy goat a lesson about boasting. Aesop would leave tracks of the goat’s favourite food (alfalfa) as a little treat so the animals were cheeky and they dug a hole at the end of the trail. They knew where this was for they would sometimes follow the goat to see where he went. Aesop left the track without knowing about the hole and called the goat to get his daily treat.
The goat dashed to the farmer and followed the trail not leaving one single grain of alfalfa on the ground. The other animals silently spied on him, carefully tiptoeing behind. The goat approached the hole and crash! In he fell and suddenly all the animals started filling up the hole. It looked as if there was nothing there! The animals made their way back and settled for their afternoon forty winks.
When they woke up, the farmer was looking everywhere for the goat. He was pale and muddy. “I give up!” moaned the farmer and sat in a soggy pile of mud. The cow and the sheep crept to the hole without the farmer noticing and they dug the goat out. “Now you foolish goat, we dug you out because we care for you but it doesn’t seem like you care for us if you’re always boasting about the farmer liking you best. It’s either you be nice or we push you back in!” mooed the cow. “I’m sorry,” sighed the goat, sulking.
They reached back to the pen and the goat went to the farmer. “From now on Master Aesop, you shall treat me fairly, just like the other animals. I am one of them so you should treat me the same,” exclaimed the goat. He lay down on some straw instead of his private luxury velvet and sighed. From that day they all lived fairly and lived happily ever after.
Moral – ‘Don’t boast and treat others how you would like to be treated.’