Short Story for Children – Gossiping Goat
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Period when animals were speak
Once upon a time, when the wild animals were speaking. Lion, hyena, leopard didn’t feed themselves on other animal’s flesh; they lived together peacefully and advised each other on life related issues. Lion was the king of the jungle.
Birds, crocodiles, tortoises were changed their body sharp to human being and went to market for buying and selling of goods, all the animals could speak fluently. God creation is amazing but He (GOD) can do more than that.
In one small Fulani community located between Cameroon and Ghana, there was a gossiping goat reared by a house wife with her husband who was a farmer and one child. The goat was very talkative who talks any how and it could not control its tongue. Everybody hated the goat because of its bad speaking habit, but it could not change its habitual act, its gossiping habit gradually became extraordinary with aroma language, everything the goat saw, must embellish it.
There was a day her rearing-mother spent much time in toilet. During this day this chitchat goat encircled the village reporting that:
“My raring mother spend three hours in toilet, I could hear the sound of gas she was releasing from where I ‘am”
As her rearing-mother heard that rumor she was annoyed, she even attempted to sell the gossiping goat. But when she went to market to sell the goat, all and sundry that heard that: the goat is a gossiper he in fact refused to buy it.
Unhappily, they returned home together, the speaking goat added more of its words, she became more ad much gossiper, linking unusual styles of fighting between families.
Near by rearing-mother’s house there was a young lady who lost her parent, her step-mother didn’t take good care of her, and she always refused to feed her but lug her with huge and heavy works in their compound. Because of that, the young lady hard to go out to steal food for her survival.
One day, the young lady’s step-mother sent her to rearing-mother’s house. As the young lady entered the house, she found nobody except little kid; his mother went out to get some firewood that enable her to complete her cooking, which she put on traditional stove at the premises of the compound, but before she left, she instructed the goat to lull the baby into sleep before she come back, but the goat went out too.
The little kid was playing with his two legs, the pot under traditional stove, the young lady has very good sense of any smell like a dog, she smelt the pleasant aroma of the cooking, as she confirmed there was nobody in the house, her mouth was watering she quickly reached to the cooking pot, opened it and took some food hided it then instantly walked away. Since opening the pot, she didn’t know that the goat got back just to see the condition of the child, the goat then saw everything the young lady did, it stared how young lady tried hard to stole food and hided it.
The goat quickly walked out and went to young lady’s step mother and told her what the lady done. Even added by saying:
“Your lady stole all my rearing-mother food including my own food”
She stopped for a while and continued with:
“Unfortunately people amplified rumors that you are not taking good care of the young lady, this is the reason she always stealing people’s food, I can’t fail to remember you this vital issue, I must tell you just to find out possible solution”
Step-mother was very angry of the bad news; her anger forced her to beat young lady to death. This regrettable story of what Gossiping goat coursed cycled all over the village, the fateful story that caused the death of the young lady prejudiced everyone heated animals.
Rearing-mother was very angry too, she is very mad of the attitude of the gossiping goat. For that reason she hided very razor-sharp knife and awaken in the middle of the night and slaughtered the gossiping goat. In the morning she took the goat’s dead body and hanged it in the heart of the jungle. Most of the people in the village emulated rearing-mother and did the same thing to their animals; they are worried of how animals spoke any how.
Any animal that saw other animal’s dead body hanged in the bush, it hurriedly run away and went to lion kingdom. They gathered there for a while, at last king lion advised all the animals to remove their voices and burry it, every one agreed, the entire animals removed their voices, dogged very big grave and buried their voices just to have faith with human being. From that time animals stopped speaking but they all her every sounds in the world.
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Short Story by Bello Hamisu Ida, Student of Umaru Musa Yar’adua University Katsina, Katsina State English Department.
