TALETIME
No good deed is too small, even helping a tiny snail is a kind deed in the eyes of God!
By Niggy
Trinkoo is just seven years old, that is 5 plus 2! He has a big, round face. In school, Trinkoo likes to read fairytales and sit in the shade of a tree and watch the birds sing. Trinkoo loves animals and birds, and in his house, called the ‘Magic Terrace’, there are lovely green plants and flowers, and lots of butterflies too! Trinkoo and his friend Chinku often do what they call a ‘nature walk’ on the terrace, spotting different kinds of insects. Trinkoo does not like hurting even ants. So, whenever he walks, he puts his small head down and walks carefully so that he does not step on the ants and hurt them. ‘They are also creatures of God, and so let them be happy,’ he says to Chinku and even the grown-ups.
In school, one day, the teacher told all the children to do one good deed on a Sunday, called the ‘Sunday Kind Deed’, and on Monday, everybody had to say what good deed they did. It so happened that on a Sunday when Trinkoo and Chinku were playing on the Magic Terrace, they spotted a very cute brown snail crawling on the ground. Now Trinkoo and Chinku had seen snails only in story books, and the grown-ups would always keep saying, ‘Don’t be slow like a snail!’ That’s pretty much all they knew about snails. So, they were very pleasantly surprised to see one, right in front of them!
‘Wuppy’! squealed the kids.
‘Hey Trinkoo, let’s put Sunny the snail in a box and keep it with us as a pet!’ said Chinku.
‘No Chinku, the snail has to live in a garden! Come, let’s put it in a flower-bed. It will be very happy! Otherwise, someone may step on it, or it may get swept away by a broom,’ said Trinkoo, who had read many things about snails and beetles in his picture books.
Trinkoo took a big leaf and gently put the snail on it and then kept it on a hibiscus flower-bed. Trinkoo and Chinku watched it happily crawling along the flowers. And guess what? It turned around and looked at the two kids with its tiny beady eyes and nodded its little head as if to say ‘Thank you kids for such a lovely bed!’
The next day in school, Trinkoo and Chinku told the class of their Sunday Kind Deed with Sunny the snail and the teacher gave them a special prize for being kind to a pretty creature of God!
So kids, it’s alright to be slow and steady like a snail! And no good deed is too small: even helping a tiny snail is a kind deed in the eyes of God! So, be kind like Chinku and Trinkoo!
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