THE CLEVER CARPENTER - Children Moral story

Once there lived a carpenter and his wife in a forest. A lion with his two greedy and lazy friends - a cunning jackal and a crow also lived in the same forest. The carpenter cut the wood in the forest and his wife did the cooking.

One day when the lion saw them he growled. The clever carpenter bowed low and said, “O great king, thank you for visiting us. My wife has cooked a fine meal. We will be happy if you join us at dinner.” The lion was pleased and joined them for dinner. He relished the food. The carpenter said, “You are welcome to share our meal every day.

Please come alone and don’t bring your friends”. The lion agreed and assured them that nobody would harm them. The lion came every day to eat with his new friends. The lion gave up hunting and therefore stopped eating meat. This made his friends - the lazy jackal and the crow to starve without food. One day the jackal asked the lion why he had stopped hunting. The lion said, “I have found two new friends. They give me very nice food every day. So I don’t hunt”. When the jackal and the crow heard this they were angry but did not show it. They said, “We are eager to meet your new friends”. The lion said that he could not take them as he had promised his new friends that he would always meet them alone. The jackal and the crow cried and begged the lion to take them to his new friends’ house.

The lion agreed at last on condition that they would not harm his new friends. Next morning the jackal and the crow set out with the lion to meet the carpenter and his wife. Secretly the jackal and the crow had a plan to kill the lion’s new friends. The carpenter saw the lion, the jackal and the crow together at a distance. He said to his wife, “We are in for trouble. Let’s hurry. Look there they are. They may attack us. Go and climb a tree.” Saying so, both the carpenter and his wife climbed the tree. “Hi, why are you running? They are also my friends. Don’t be afraid. They won’t  harm you”, roared the lion, on seeing the carpenter and his wife running for life. “Oh, king of forests! We like you. We know you will not harm us. But your friends are greedy.

They may kill us. We are safe here,” cried the carpenter sitting on the tree. The lion looked back. He saw the yearning eyes of the jackal and the hungry eyes of the crow and understood that the carpenter was right. So the lion angrily pounced on the cunning and greedy jackal and the crow and drove them away. In the meantime the carpenter and his wife left the forest for ever.