The Boy Who Drew In The Mud and other parables

By Zachary Harper

A collection of short parables and poems, each with a purpose to purvey an overarching moral. For those who love Aesop's Fables and Grimm's Fairy Tales, these original stories continue the aged tradition of meaningful stories for both the young and old.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zachary Harper
• Release date: Oct 29, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452356914

Zachary Harper

Zachary Harper attended the University of Iowa, receiving degrees in Classical Chinese and Linguistics. Having studied Greek, Hebrew, and Chinese, he immersed himself in the faery tales and folk lore that fired the imaginations of the great early writers and served as the foundation of literature for thousands of years. Now he, too, draws from the well of the muses, writing parables and fables meant to both educate and entertain, hoping for nothing more than to inspire conversation on the ideas too complex to fit into anything other than simple stories.

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The Boy Who Drew in the Mud

and other parables

Zachary Harper

Published by Zachary Harper

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2010 Zachary Harper

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The Boy Who Drew In The Mud

There once was a boy who drew in the mud. Now, this was quite an ordinary boy, and his drawings were of nothing in particular, and of no significant artistry. Nonetheless, the boy would, as often as he could escape from the various chores and homework everyone seemed to enjoy giving him, spend hours with a stick, or maybe just his fingers, or occasionally a carrot or bit of celery he had smuggled into his pocket to avoid eating, drawing and drawing in the big patch of mud on the edge of his backyard, near the garden his neighbor had.

Now, this neighbor was quite an ordinary neighbor, and like all quite ordinary neighbors, was particularly nosy in matters he had no business being nosy in, and not nearly nosy enough in matters he well should have been nosy about. So this neighbor would watch the young boy drawing in the mud all afternoon long as the sky was starting to darken and the clouds were starting to build and blacken like a cloud of ash in a small room, and he would yell from his porch where he sat, Boy! Why do you draw in the mud? It will just be washed away when the rain comes in, and you will be left with nothing! But the boy would just look at him with those big brown child-eyes, give a half-hearted shrug, and return to his scribbling. And when the rain came, the boy would sit and watch as it washed away, and the neighbor would shout Boy! What did I tell you! Now you must start from the beginning! But the boy would just look at him with those big brown child-eyes, and give a big grin, and return to his watching.

For as long as the neighbor could remember, this would happen every time it would rain. Yet never did the boy tire of the game; he would draw, and watch as it would wash away. And the neighbor thought, This boy must be mad! There is no reason why he should so enjoy all his work and all his effort wasting away into the ground. Why, it is quite unnatural! Next time, I will go right up to the boy and drag him away from his mud, and I will explain to him exactly how these things should be done! With a pencil and clean sheet of paper, or maybe a scrap of charcoal from my fireplace! Yes, I will teach him how to draw properly, on proper things!

So the next time he walked out on his porch