Written by Guy de Maupassant With the first day of spring, when the awakening earth puts on its garment of green, and the warm, fragrant air fans our faces and fills our lungs and appears even to penetrate to our hearts, we experience a vague, undefined longing for freedom, for happiness, a desire to run, to wander aimlessly, to breathe in the spring. The previous winter having been unusually severe, this spring feeling was like a form of intoxication in May, as if there were an overabundant supply of sap. One morning on waking I saw from my window the blue sky glowing in the sun above t ... read more

The Lion and the Mouse Once when a lion, the king of the jungle, was asleep, a little mouse began running up and down on him. This soon awakened the lion, who placed his huge paw on the mouse, and opened his big jaws to swallow him. "Pardon, O King!" cried the little mouse. "Forgive me this time. I shall never repeat it and I shall never forget your kindness. And who knows, I may be able to do you a good turn one of these days!" The lion was so tickled by the idea of the mouse being able to help him that he lifted his paw and let him go. Sometime later, a few hunters captured the l ... read more

The Apple Tree and the Farmer Once upon a time, there lived a farmer in a village, beside a forest. He had a big garden that had an old apple tree and other plants, trees and beautiful flowers. When the farmer was a little boy, he spent much of his time playing with the apple tree. Those days, the apple tree had given the choicest of apples to him. However, as time passed, the apple tree became old and stopped bearing fruits. Now that the farmer was not getting any apples from the tree, he decided that the tree was useless. Therefore, he decided to cut the tree and use its wood to make s ... read more

Akbar once put a question to his court that left everyone puzzled. As they all tried to figure out the answer, Birbal walked and asked what the matter was. And so they told him the question. ‘How many crows are there in the city?’ Birbal immediately smiled, went up to Akbar and announced that the answer to his questions was twenty-one thousand five hundred and twenty-three. When asked how he knew the answer, Birbal replied, ‘Ask your men to count the number of crows. If there are more, then the crows’ relatives from outside the city are visiting them. If there are fewer, then the crows a ... read more

There were once two brothers who lived on the edge of a forest. The elder brother was very mean to his younger brother and ate up all the food and took all his good clothes. One day, the elder brother went into the forest to find some firewood to sell in the market. As he went around chopping the branches of a tree after tree, he came upon a magical tree. The tree said to him, ‘Oh kind sir, please do not cut my branches. If you spare me, I will give you my golden apples’. The elder brother agreed but was disappointed with the number apples the tree gave him. Greed overcame him, and he threaten ... read more