A Tall Tale

A Tall Tale

Once upon a time, in a place far away and long ago, there was a very tiny little village on the side of a great mountain. In the village lived a boy named Melino. Every morning Melino would take his dog for a walk on the winding path that led to the top of the mountain. All the children in the village would follow Melino and his dog to the top of the mountain and not come back until the sun was going down in the evening.

The parents in the village tried to get the children to tell where they had been all day, but none of them would say. Some of the parents tried to keep their children home, but the children would climb out the windows when no one was looking. Some of the parents tried to follow the children to see where they were going, but as soon as they got on the winding path they would get lost because the path would change directions after the children had passed by. The path would wind up and down the mountain until it led them back to the village without ever going to the top.

Finally one of the people in the village said to his neighbor “We need to get rid of Melino so our children will stay home”. So that night some of the biggest men in the village quietly went into the house where Melino and his dog were sleeping. They quickly tied up the boy and his dog, carried them out to the edge of the village, and left them there for the wolves to eat.

The next morning when the children were ready to go up the mountain, Melino was nowhere to be found. They looked in his house, and in the woods behind the village, and at the foot of the path, but no one could find Melino, and so the children were all very sad. They sat and cried all day long. The cried until their tears began to make puddles on the ground. The puddles grew into ponds and the ponds filled up and began to run down the mountain. At first there were just little streams going down, but as they met other little streams they turned into big streams and rivers.

And that is how we got all the streams and rivers that come from the mountains to give us water in the valley.