Online Stories for Children for a Month: Second Week

     Once upon a time, a forest had straight and beautiful trees. But there was a lonely tree in the same forest, whose trunk was hunched and bent. The branches were also twisted.
     The other trees mocked and laughed at this tree, calling it hunchback. Travellers avoided it and no bird made its nest on it.
     This ill treatment made the tree very sad. Whenever it looked at the other trees, it sighed, “I wish I was like other beautiful trees. God has been cruel to me.”
     One day, a wood-cutter came to the forest. He saw the hunchback tree and muttered, “This tree is useless for me.” So, he cut down all the straight and smooth trees.
     Then the hunchback tree realised that there is some good in whatever God does. God had saved his life by making it a twisted tree.
     Thus, the hunchback tree’s life had been saved by its ugliness.

     Once upon a time, a lion lived in a jungle. One day, he found a deep cave. He looked inside but did not find anyone in it. Lion was sure that some animal lived there. “I shall wait for him,” he thought.
    A jackal that lived in this cave came back to his home in the evening. He noticed the pugmarks (footprints) of a lion leading to his cave but did not find any footprints coming out of the cave. The clever jackal became suspicious.

    The jackal, therefore, made a plan to confirm if lion was inside the cave. He called out loudly, “Oh Cave! If you do not speak as usual I will go away.”
     The lion decided to answer on behalf of the cave to lure the jackal in. So he roared out a greeting to the jackal. Hearing this, the clever jackal ran away and saved his life. .

     One day, a lion was caught in a trap cage. The lion requested a passer-by to help him get out of the cage. After the lion promised that he would not eat him, the passer-by opened the cage. The lion came out of the cage but broke his promise. He wanted to eat the man
     The man was worried, so he suggested that they should present their case to a judge. The man also reassured the lion that he would obey the decision of the judge. The lion agreed.  
     A jackal that was passing by was asked to be the judge.  The Jackal asked them to show him what had actually happened. The lion entered the cage and as told by the jackal, the man quickly shut the door and locked it.
     The man and the jackal ran away teaching the ungrateful lion a lesson.

   Once upon a time, a camel and a jackal became great friends. One day, the jackal said, “Let’s feast in the watermelon field.” The camel agreed. They went there. After eating, the jackal started howling.
     “Please Don’t howl, your howling will bring the farmer here,” pleaded the camel.
     “Singing is good for my digestion,” the jackal replied.
     Soon, the farmer came and beat the camel with a stick, while the jackal ran away.  
     The camel found an opportunity take his revenge one day, when he offered the jackal a ride on his back while he would swim in the river. The jackal agreed.

     Once in the river, the camel started to dive under the water. The jackal cried, “What are you doing? I will drown.”

     “I must take a dive if I am in water. Good for my health,” said the camel and went under the water leaving the jackal helpless.
     The jackal learnt a lesson.

     A proud hare used to make fun of a tortoise. “You move so slowly!”  When the tortoise couldn’t bear the daily humiliation, he challenged the hare to a race.
     The hare laughed merrily, “You must be joking! All right, tomorrow morning, we’ll go to the other side of the hill and see who reaches first.”
     Next day, early in the morning, both started the race. The hare raced ahead speedily and decided to rest for a while seeing the tortoise far behind,.
     Meanwhile, the tortoise continued to move slowly and steadily. By the time the hare woke up, the tortoise had almost reached the finishing line. The hare ran as fast as he could, but the slow tortoise had won the race! The hare realized his folly. Slow and steady wins the race.