A
clever fox decided to set up a nursery school for the baby animals of the
jungle and so one day he put on a pair of looking glass, hung a sign board and
sat beside a stream waiting for his students. A crocodile had seven kids and she
wanted her kids to be able to read and write and so she spoke with cunning fox.
‘Very well’ answered the fox thorough his glasses, ‘but you have to leave them
with me’.
The
following day, the mother crocodile brought her seven kids and left them in the
fox’s den. The fox gathered the kids in a secluded corner and said, ‘I am your
master and every body must listen to me’. Then he took one kid near him and
said, ‘everybody repeat with me, urugud, burugud, baby crocodile tastes good’
so saying he ate that crocodile. Now there were six crocodiles left. That
evening when the mother crocodile came to see her kids, the fox stood in front
of the hole, took out one baby crocodile and counter ‘one’. Then he put it
back, took out another one and counted ‘one’. Then he put it back, took out
another one and counted ‘two’. Thus he counted five crocodiles. The sixth
crocodile, he counted it twice, making it appear that there are seven
crocodiles. As all the baby crocodiles looked the same, the mother could not
figure out the missing one.
The next day, too, the fox took the
kids inside the hole and ate another crocodile, leaving only five. That night,
when the mother crocodile came, the fox as before, stood in front of her hole
and counted the fifth crocodile three times, again making it appear that there
are seven kids. After eating the last crocodile, the fox left her hole and went
away. That night, when the mother crocodile could not find anyone, she entered
the hole and found it littered with bones. She vowed to punish the fox and
teach him a lesson.
After days of searching, the
crocodile found the place where the fox was hiding; it was near a brook and the
fox often came to the brook to drink water. So the crocodile hid under the marshy
water and water for the fox. Around noon time, the fox stepped into the water,
the crocodile moved fast and grabbed his leg. Sensing the danger, the fox said,
‘hey friend, what are you doing? don’t you know I can’t see very well these
days, so I carry my stick with me, now if you only let it go, I can get up’.
The
crocodile quickly let the leg go in order to catch the leg, when whosssh! the
fox jumped out of the water and ran away. Once more the crocodile was fooled by
the fox, but still she did not give up.
The crocodile found out that the fox
visits the sea shore often accompanied by his wife and thought of a novel way
to catch the fox pair. Then on e day, she lay down on the sand motionless, eyes
closed as if appearing dead. The fox and his wife came to the shore and seeing
the crocodile lying on the sand without even moving, the fox halted at a
distant and said, ‘wife, I wonder whether this crocodile is alive or dear, for
a dead crocodile always wags it’s tail, and this one is not’ The crocodile did
not want to be fooled and so as soon as she heard this, she started to wag her
tail. Seeing this, the fox laughed aloud, ‘see, I knew she was just pretending’
and then they left for another place. But the crocodile never gave up chasing
the fox and even to this day foxes do not go to drink water, where crocodiles
are present.
