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Long ago, a family lived on a farm. The United States was suffering due to the Great Depression, so the family had been living off of grains and scraps. Every day the family would eat at a certain time scrounging up scraps to compose one meal. Each day the family grew weaker and weaker. The little kids complained about being hungry, the father complained about feeling too weak to work, the mother could barely hold her younger baby. One day, the father of the family got in late from a long day of work, holding the family's dinner in his hands. He laid it on the table and they divided the portions and began to eat in silence. While they continued to eat the little food they had, they heard a knock coming from the door.
"I will get it," said the wife. She got up from the table struggling to push her chair in and walked to the door. The guest came in and sat down with the family at the dinner table. The mother offered the guest her portion of food and the guest gladly took it and scarfed it down. The guest still felt hungry. The mother nudged the oldest boy to give up his portion of food, and although he had not eaten all day, he still handed it over. The guest thanked him and ate all of his portion too. The guest still heard his stomach rumble. The younger daughter was the last one to still have her share of food. She was so thin and weak and it broke the father's heart to see her give up her portion of food. She handed it over to the guest, and then something unexpected happened.
The guest revealed himself to be Dharma, the God! Dharma blessed the family for giving up their only sources of food and allowed them peace in heaven.
A cat had wandered into the house to find scraps of grains on the ground. The cat ate the scraps and suddenly half of his body turned to gold from the magic sacrifice that had happened earlier.
Author's Note:
I was originally inspired by the story in the Mahabharata, "The Mongoose" I thought I would retell the story as a family during the Great Depression who were struggling gathering food from their farm. I loved reading this story because I liked how different it was from the rest of the Mahabharata stories. I also liked the idea of using a cat in this story instead of a mongoose because I wanted this story to have (for the most part) a very realistic plot to it. I really enjoyed getting to read this story and create my own from it!
Bibliography:
Author: Annie Besant
Title: The Mongoose
Link: Link to story
