James came running into the house screaming and crying. I had just gotten done with the dishes and went to go see what was wrong with. When I found
him, it looked like he had some dirt on his knees and shirt. It must have been
one of those bullies.
He wrapped his hands around my waist and said, “Mommy!
Charley hit me and kept pushing me down! In front of everyone too. It is not
fair; he is bigger than me!”
“Did you tell Mrs. Carter?” I replied.
“Yes. She sent him to the office, but he still will push me
around on the playground. He will not ever just leave me alone,” James said.
“Listen, James, let me tell you a quick story that you will
be able to apply in your situation.”
“In the old days, there was more jungle than there is today. No
cities, or towns. Wild elephants were numerous. Once upon a
time a red ant and a black ant were burrowing in the ground. Suddenly, a wild
elephant appeared and said, “Why are you burrowing here? I will smash all
of your work to pieces.”
“Why do you talk to us like this?” the ants replied. “Do not
despise us because we are small; as a matter of fact we are better than you in
some ways.”
The elephant laughed and told the ants not to talk nonsense. "There is nothing that ants can beat me in," the elephant said. "I am the largest and
most powerful animal." The ants weren't bothered by his speech, and they
challenged him to a race. Whoever wins will declare to being the supreme creature.
Once the elephant heard this challenge, he became enraged. He shouted, “Well, come we will start at once,” and he set off to run with all
its strength. When it got tired, it looked down at the ground, and saw two
ants.
Off the elephant went again, and when it stopped and looked
down, there on the ground were two ants again, so it ran some more. Whenever
the elephant stopped, it saw the ants, and at last it ran so far that it
dropped down from exhaustion, never to bother the ants again. The End.”
“Now, you see James, ants are more numerous in this world
than any other kind of living creature, and what happened was that the two ants
never even ran the race. They stayed where they were, but whenever the elephant looked
at the ground, it saw some ants running about and thought that they were the first
two, and so it ran away and fell from exhaustion.
The End."
This story teaches you, James, not to worry about the bigger
and stronger bully. God knows why He made all of the different animals and
people of all different shapes and sizes. Some boys are fools, and you just have
to outsmart them. Be the ant and not the elephant!
Author's Note
This week I decided to base my story off of the "The Elephant and the Ants"
in the Santal Folklore unit in the Un-textbook. The reason why I chose to write
about this story is that I believe that this story has so much meaning behind
it, and so many lessons came be learned from it whether or you are telling the
story to a child or a coworker.
The elephant is seen as the bully in the story. He sees the ants, and threatens to destroy their home for no apparent reason. I
wanted the elephant to be a parallel character for Charley. In the story that
is being told to James, the ants are supposed to represent him.
I kept the story about the elephant almost
exactly the same. The only major change that I had was that instead of the
elephant running itself to death, I decided to make him fall over from
exhaustion. The reason I chose to do this was because since this
story was being told to a child, I didn’t want to use the explicit of the
Elephant (bully) dying. This could create problems in the real world that James
is in if he goes to school saying that James is going to die one day! I think that it was more realistic to exclude that part from the story. Most
parents do not want their kid telling others that they are going to die.
Bibliography:
This story is from the Santal Folklore unit.
Folklore of the Santal Parganas by
Cecil Henry Bompas (1909).
