Storytelling Week 6: The Squirrel's Happy Ending

The Squirrel's Happy Ending

Squirrel. Source: Wikipedia

Gone.

Gone, gone, gone.

His crops, his income, his money, his future, his hopes, his dreams. All gone.

"That stupid spider," he thought to himself. "I can't believe he got away with taking my farm. How could everyone believe him?! I worked so hard for so long to get that farm to where is was. And now it's gone."

The spider, who managed to manipulate the entire town into believing that the squirrel's land was his own, was already halfway to riches. He not only stole the squirrel's farm, but also harvested all of the crops to sell.

All the squirrel had left was his family, whom he couldn't provide for anymore.

"It'll all work out, I promise," Mrs. Squirrel said.

"How could you know that for sure?" Squirrel replied.

"I don't, but we always make it work," sighed Mrs. Squirrel.

The next day, Squirrel made his way to town to look for work. On his way, he passed a large patch of land with many crops. This piqued his interest.

How had he never seen this before? He could've sworn that land to be empty just a few weeks ago.

Circling the magnificent display of crops was a crow. Squirrel waved him down to ask about the land.

"Yes, this is my field," the crow said.
"But how did you get the crops to grow so quickly?" inquired the squirrel.

"I'm not sure...it was quite odd, actually. One stormy night I found some crops on the side of the road. Once the rain passed, a strange spider came by and INSISTED they were his. But who would leave their crops out in the rain?! So I claimed them as my own and planted their seeds here," the crow explained. "It didn't take long until they were healthy and plentiful."

"WAIT...A SPIDER?!" The squirrel screeched. "Those were my crops that he stole! And I'll tell you what..he'll get these too if you're not careful...let me tell you how he got mine and show you how to prevent that from happening to you."

The squirrel explained everything to the crow and helped him to fight off the spider's attempts at his crops. Sure enough, the spider tried and tried, but the crow was prepared from the squirrel's advice.

The crow was so incredibly thankful that he let the squirrel have half of his crops, which actually made him richer than he was before. In the end, the squirrel won.

Author's Note: In the original story, the squirrel's fields get taken by the spider. The spider was a thief and stole the squirrel's hard-earned crops and went to sell them. In the end, the crops were taken by the crow because the spider left them out in the rain. This story frustrated me and made me want to tell the squirrel's story and for him to have a happy ending with wealth instead of a depressing ending with debt. The squirrel did nothing to harm or hurt the spider. The spider was just rude.

Bibliography: This story is part of the West African Folktales unit. Story source: West African Folktales by William H. Barker and Cecilia Sinclair, with drawings by Cecilia Sinclair (1917).