Two bunnies, two bears, two chicks, a cow, a cat and a mouse all lived together in a field next to an apple orchard. Every spring when the apple trees blossomed, the animals danced around with excitement knowing that in a few months, lots of big, red, juicy apples would hang from branches over the fence. Some would even fall to the ground in the field.
Before the first blossom, Mr. Winesap walked over to the fence. He looked at the animals in the field and then at the apples trees. The animals watched in horror as he cut all the lower branches off, gathered them in a pile and carried them away.
“Oh no,” cried the cow. “Now we'll never get to eat the apples.”
As spring passed the flowers blossomed and in the summer the leaves grew large and green and tiny apples appeared. By autumn the apples were huge and red and looked oh so juicy.
The cat, being the wisest of all the animals in the field had an idea. “Let's make a pyramid. If some of us climb on each other's backs or stand on each other's shoulders, we could reach some of those apples.”
The cow moved as close to the fence as he could. One of the bears climbed on its back. The other bear climbed up and then one of the rabbits and the mouse. “I can reach!” The mouse plucked an apple and handed it to the rabbit, who passed it to the bear, who passed it to the other bear, who handed it to the other rabbit, who put it in the basket.
They did this over and over again until the basket was full. “That was a good idea,” the mouse said to the cat.
They sat on the grass and gobbled all the apples, wiping the juice from their chins. “I love apples,” said the chicks.
“Me too,” said the others.
No comments:
Post a Comment