Reading: The little mouse

A little mouse living on a farm was looking through a crack in the wall one day and saw the farmer and his wife opening a package. The mouse was intrigued by what food the package may contain. He was aghast to discover that it was a mouse trap. The mouse ran to the farmyard warning everyone "There is a mouse trap in the house, there is a mouse trap in the house."

The chicken raised his head and said "Mr. Mouse, I can tell you this trap is a grave concern to you, but it has no consequence to me and I cannot be bothered with it." The mouse turned to the pig. The pig told him "I am so very sorry Mr. Mouse, but the trap is no concern of mine either."

The mouse then turned to the bull, but the bull said "Sounds like you have a problem Mr.Mouse, but not one that concerns me."

The mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected that no one would help him or was concerned about his dilemma. He knew he had to face the trap on his own.

That night the sound of a trap catching its prey was heard throughout the house.The farmer's wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness she could not see that it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught.

The snake bit the farmer's wife. The wife caught a bad fever and the farmer knew the best way to treat a fever was with chicken soup. The farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard to get the soup's main ingredient.

The wife got sicker and friends and neighbors came by to take turns sitting with her round the clock.The farmer knew he had to feed them, so he butchered the pig.The farmer wife did not get better, in fact she died and so many friends and family came to her funeral that the farmer had to slaughter the bull to feed all of them.

MORAL OF THE STORY: The next time we hear that one of our teammates is facing a problem and think it does not concern or affect us, let us remember that when anyone of us is in trouble, we are all at risk.

Vocabulary

1. aghast = (adjective) filled with horror or shock : when the news came out they were aghast.

2. butcher = (verb) slaughter or cut up (an animal) for food : the meat will be butchered for the local market.

3. concern = (verb) be relevant or important to; affect or involve : they should not pry into what does not concern them

4. deject = (verb) make sad or dispirited; depress : nothing dejects a trader like the interruption of his profits.

5. grave = (adjective) giving cause for alarm; serious : a matter of grave concern.

6. hatchet = (noun) a small ax with a short handle for use in one hand.

7. round (or around) the clock = day and night, all the time, continuously.

8. slaughter = (verb) kill animals for food.

9. venomous = (adjective) (of animals, esp. snakes, or their parts) secreting venom; capable of injecting venom by means of a bite or sting.