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 -- he was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap!
Retreating to the farmyard,
the mouse proclaimed the warning. "There is a mousetrap
in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!"
The chicken clucked
and scratched, raised her head and said, "Mr. Mouse, I
can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence
to me. I cannot be bothered by it."
The mouse turned to
the pig and told him, "There is a mousetrap in the house!
There is a mousetrap in the house!" The pig sympathized,
but said, "I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is
nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my
prayers."
The mouse turned to
the cow and said "There is a mousetrap in the house! There
is a mousetrap in the house!" The cow said, "Wow,
Mr. Mouse. I'm sorry for you, but it's no skin off my nose."
So, the mouse returned to the house,
head down and dejected, to face the farmer's mousetrap alone.
That very night a sound was heard throughout the house -- like
the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey.
The farmer's wife rushed
to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it
was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake
bit the farmer's wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital,
and she returned home with a fever.
Everyone knows you
treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his
hatchet to the farmyard for the soup's main ingredient. But
his wife's sickness continued, so friends and neighbors came
to sit with her around the clock.
To feed them, the
farmer butchered the pig.
The farmer's 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.
The
Moral of the Story...
So, the next time
you hear someone is facing a problem and think it doesn't
concern you, 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 and make an extra effort to encourage one another.
Each of us is a
vital thread in another person's tapestry; our lives are woven
together for a reason.
