The thief that learned a lesson - Story with a moral for young and old

Once upon a time there lived a chief.  He was well loved and all his followers liked to listen to him and helped him where they could.

This chief loved baking pies and sharing it with the rest of the tribe, so they would do their bit and pick the apples and the berries he needed for the pie.  

They wanted to show him that they appreciated what he did and that they really valued him and cared for him.

                                                        

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In this tribe people lived together in harmony and they respected one another.  They did not fight or steal and if one of them were unhappy, the chief would help them to sort it out.

One day a stranger came to live with the tribe.  The tribe members did not mind, since they were caring and wanted everybody to feel at home.

But....

Soon things started to disappear.  

Here a cow, there some money or an ax.  The people did not know what to think because they did not want to put the blame on anybody without any proof.

The next day the chief again baked some pies and put it on the windowsill to cool down, but when he came back into the kitchen, one of the pies were gone....

                           

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The chief was very upset, because he worked so hard on baking such a nice pie.

Seeing the chief upset, also made the others upset and they wanted to get to the bottom of what was going on.

They all decided to confront the new man in the tribe.

They searched everywhere for the man and at last they found him in the middle of an open piece of land.  What did they see there?  

The man was sitting flat on the ground busy eating the chief's pie.

The people wanted to tie him up and give him a hiding or chase him away from the tribe, but the kind, clever chief said, "Let us first hear why he did it."

They confronted the man and while crying he told them that he was homeless.  he did not have any money, so he stole some.  

He did not have any food, so he stole the cow to give him milk and the pie for food.  He even stole the ax to cut down trees that he could build a shelter for himself.

The chief felt sorry for the man but said in a stern voice, "That is still not enough reason to steal.  Why did you not ask for help?"

The thief was very ashamed and said that he did not know how to ask for help and he was ashamed of himself and then just made it worse by stealing.

Al the people decided to help the thief turn his life around.  

They build him a small little house and they even made sure that he had enough food to eat and taught him how to plant his own crops.

That day the thief learned, you cannot steal because you are in trouble, you need to ask for help.  There are always people willing to help.

The thief turned his life around and he is doing so well that he can even help other people who do not have enough food or need help with something.

And every Saturday he and the chief bake some lovely pies with the fruit that comes from his garden and share it with all the other people.

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