The Wagtails Who Went for a Walk

Some wagtails went for a walk through the town to see what they could see.
On one street they saw a man counting money. They stopped and stared.
On another street, they saw people eating and drinking, and the little birds watched closely.
On another street, they saw a carpenter, a blacksmith, a basket-maker, a potter, a weaver, many kinds of workers, and they gazed at them all in wonder. 
The wagtails went home and talked about what they had seen. They had seen so many things!
But then they realized that they had actually not obtained anything for themselves.



Inspired by: "The Gazing of the Toondoko" in Mongo proverbs and fables by E. A. Ruskin, 1921.
Notes: You can read the original story online. I was not able to determine what kind of bird "toondoko" refers to; the book only glosses it as "small birds," so I chose "wagtail," since that is a small bird, many species of which are found in the Congo region.


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