Greedy pays & Kindness repays

Once upon a time in a faraway land there was a farmer, named Phil. Now Phil had a small farm in which he had planted all sorts of fruits & flowers, he lived on the farm in a cute little cottage covered with wild flowers with his wife. Phil was a very hardworking, kind & gentle person & so was his wife, she always helped him on the farm. Adjoining to their farm was a farm bigger than Phil's, owned by a shrewd, cunning & greedy farmer named Bill. Bill was very lazy & always used to hatch some plans to get rich by some unscrupulous means.

        In the midst of Phil's farm there was a giant banyan tree which was home to many different birds, Phil & his wife daily fed them with grains & water, the birds also were kind to them in return, they never pecked any fruit from Phil's farm & never destroyed the produce, but Bill always kept on complaining about the birds to Phil & used to threaten that he would cut down the tree. Phil always persuaded him not to do so & tried to make him understand that if the tree is chopped down the birds would have no home at all & there were little ones of the birds in their nests.

        Days passed by & Phil & his wife kept toiling on the farm. One afternoon when Phil was resting under the Banyan tree he heard two birds perched on the branch above him talking, they were saying, "This man is very kind & hardworking we must do something for him, for he & his wife have fed us all these years, he really ought to get what he really deserves. I think now is the time, let us go & wake him up". Phil was amazed to hear the birds talk but did not want to be rude & interrupt them, so he lay still. The birds flew down besides Phil & with their beaks tried to wake him up gently, Phil opened his eyes & stared at them not knowing what to do. One of the bird said, "Phil, don't be surprised or scared, we have been watching you for years & we have decided to reward you for all the virtues you possess. Dig the earth where you are sitting right now", Phil immediately obeyed them & started digging the ground, after digging up to a certain distance he found two sacks one big & one small, he pulled them out & placed them on the ground. The birds inspected the two sacks & then said, "Choose any one of the sack & take it home, but remember you are not supposed to open the sack here, do it when you enter your house. So..which sack do you want to take?"....Phil did not understand what was going on, but he was a content & modest person he chose the small sack & said, "Thank you little birds, I choose the small sack because whatever is there in it, I think will be sufficient for me & my wife..You are really very kind, Thank you".. Phil took the sack, got up from there & went home. On reaching his home he narrated the story to his wife, she was amazed to hear it & thanked god, they then opened the sacked & were both shocked & astounded to see what was there in the sack, for their eyes twinkled as it was filled with beautiful sparkling precious gems. They were indeed very happy & thanked god for he had finally answered their prayers.

        Slowly as the days passed by the farmer & his wife started to put the money to a good use, also as a gift to the birds they made them small bird houses & hung them on the banyan tree. Bill who lived on the farm adjacent to Phil's was curious about Phil suddenly becoming rich so one day he went over to Phil's house & casually asked him the secret. Phil was a naive guy & was not suspicious of Bill suddenly being nice to him, so he went ahead & told him everything, Bill was amazed hearing that & started hatching evil plans as to how to fool Phil & his wife & to get to the birds. One day Bill came over to Phil's house & told him that the roof on his cottage has gotten a big hole & he couldn't rest in the afternoon as the sun rays came pouring in through that hole, so he asked if he could rest under the banyan tree. The naive farmer did not doubt a thing & agreed.

          Bill went & pretended to sleep under the banyan tree. The birds on the tree saw him & started speaking in hushed tones, "This person is very mean, lazy & greedy he should be taught a lesson", they came flying down besides Bill. The eager farmer immediately opened his eyes & the birds told him the same thing that they had asked Phil to do. Bill immediately started digging & found two sacks after a while. The birds asked him to chose one, the greedy person thought to himself, "Its better that a take the bigger sack as it would have lots of gems in it, there is no need to act stupid & take the smaller sack like that Phil", so he chose the bigger sack, & went home without even thanking the birds. As soon as he went home he hurriedly opened the sack & to his dismay he found that there were rocks in them & also all the money in the house had transformed in to rocks. He could do nothing now except  to cry on his ill fate & to mend his ways.

He had learned his lesson & from that day on he decided to be a good person after all.