“Adopt me!” Rabbit told an old woman. “You’re struggling without children to help you. I’ll work, and you’ll feed me.”
“Yes, Rabbit,” the old woman said, “I adopt you!”
Each day Rabbit took a hoe and went out, but he didn’t work. He slept, rubbed mud on the hoe, and returned for dinner each evening.
At harvest time, Rabbit led the woman to a neighbor’s field. “Behold!” he said.
She began gathering the harvest, but her neighbor stopped her.
“Rabbit worked here for me,” she explained.
“Rabbit slept here,” said the neighbor. “He didn’t work.”
Rabbit, meanwhile, ran away, laughing.
[a Nandi story from Kenya]
Inspired by: "The Hare and the Old Woman" in The Nandi, their language and folk-lore by Alfred C. Hollis, 1909.
Notes: You can read the original story online.
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