Caterpillar

Brown and furry

Caterpillar in a hurry,

Take your walk

To shady leaf, or stalk,

Or what not , 

 Which may be  chosen  spot

No toad spy you ,

Hovering bird of prey pass by you;

Spin and die ,

To live again a butterfly.

                           

What happens when we try to do another’s work thinking it must be easy?

Once upon a time there was a man who was always surly and cross.

He never thought his wife did anything right in the house. One evening, during hay-making time, he came home angry. He scolded and shouted at her.

He made a fuss about everything in sight.

“Don’t be so angry,” said his wife. “I’ll tell you what we’ll do. Tomorrow let’s exchange our work. I’ll go out with the mowers and mow. You can stay at home and mind the house.”

‘Yes!’ the husband thought, ‘that would be very nice.’ To do nothing but stay home all day long, he said, would be easy indeed. So, early next morning, his wife set off for work. The man stayed behind to mind the house and do the work at home. First of all, he sat down to church the butter. But when he had churned for a while, he got thirsty. So he went down to the cellar to for a drink. Just then he heard the cat come into the kitchen. Off he ran up the cellar steps as fast as he could. He didn’t want the cat to knock over the butter churn. But when he got there, he saw that the cat had already knocked the churn over. It was licking up the cream which was running all over the floor. The man got so wild with rage that he ran at the cat as fast as he could. He caught it just as it ran out of doors, put it out and locked the door. Then suddenly he remembered he had not turned off the tap of the drink pot. He quickly ran down to the cellar, but every drop of ale had run out and lay in a puddle on the cellar floor.

Then he went into the dairy and found enough cream left to fill the butter churn once more. He began to churn again, for they needed butter at dinner.

When he had churned a bit, he remembered that the cow was still locked up in the barn. She hadn’t had a bit to eat or a drop to drink all morning, thought the sun was high. He was very late and he thought it would take too long to take her down to the meadow. So he thought it would take too long to take her down to the meadow. So he thought he’d just get her up on the top of the house. For the house, you must know, was thatched, and a fine crop of grass was growing there. Now the house lay close up against a hill. He thought if he laid a plank across to the thatch at the back of the house, he’d easily get the cow up to the roof.

Yet he couldn’t leave the butter churn, for there was his little baby crawling about on the floor. ‘If I leave the baby’, he thought, ‘he might upset the churn.’ So he took the churn on his back and went out with it. But then he thought he’d better first give water to the cow before he turned her out on the thatch. So he took up a bucket to draw water out of the well. He quiet forgot the churn on his back and stooped over at the edge of the well. All the cream ran out of the churn over his shoulders and down the well.

Now it was near dinner time. He hadn’t even got the butter yet; so he thought he’d be some porridge. He filled a pot with water and hung it over the fire. When he had done that, he worried that the cow might perhaps fall of the thatch and break her legs or her neck. So he got up on the house to bring her down. One end of the rope he tied to the cow’s and the other he slipped down the chimney and tied round his own leg. He had to hurry, for the water now began to boil in the pot, and he still to grind the oatmeal.

So he began to grind away. While he was hard at it, down fell the cow off the house top, after all. As she fell, she dragged the man up the chimney by the rope. There he was stuck! As for the cow, she hung half way down the wall, swinging between heaven and earth for she could neither get down nor up.

Now the wife had waited a long time for her husband to call her home to dinner. At last, she thought she’d waited a long enough  and went home. When she got there, she was alarmed. She saw the cow hanging from the roof! She ran up and cut the rope with her scythe. As she did this, down plunged her husband out of the chimney. When the wife came inside the kitchen, she found him standing on his head, the porridge boiling over!