The little house on the mountain top

Living and working together made everyone one big happy family but all that changed when the jar went missing

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Once upon a time, there was a little house on the mountain top. It was yellow in colour with a red and white roof, and cute little blue window trimmings. One day, a family who travelled from a kingdom not so far away spotted the little house as they walked past the mountain.

“Oh, look! What a pretty little house,” they said.

They fell in love with the house instantly and decided to make it their home. They took the best little rooms, best little beds and best little everything.

One day, a group of people who were lost in the mountain came across the little house on the mountain top.

“Knock! Knock!”

“May we have a glass of water please? We were travelling along the river and got lost. Now we have nowhere else to go,” said one of them.

Since the little house on the mountain top had lots of little rooms with little beds, the family welcomed the travellers to stay.

Soon, more strangers found themselves enchanted with the lovely little house on the mountain top. They too decided to make the little house their home.

Over time, the little house on the mountain top was filled with so many people who loved it dearly – the original family, the traveller family and the stranger family.

Every day, they worked together around the little house. They planted vegetables, fruit trees and also red, white, yellow and blue daisies in and around the garden.

While waiting for the vegetables and the fruits to be harvested, they also started their very own little farm. Some reared chickens and ducks while the others got their hands dirty with pigs and cows.

Living together and working together hand in hand, made the family members, the travellers and the strangers, one big happy family. Together, they protected their little house from the snakes, skunks and other enemies that scampered around their home.

As years passed, their love for the little house on the mountain top grew. So did their families. From husbands and wives, they became fathers and mothers and soon grandpas and grandmas.

As their family expanded, they realised that the little house needed to be expanded as well. So everyone sent someone from their families to go out into the woods to work. And when that wasn’t enough, more people went out to work. Work, work, work – that was all they did. And it was all for the sake of the little house on the mountain top.

Whatever they made, they brought home and kept it in a not too little jar. With whatever they had, they made the little house on the mountain top cosier for everyone. Soon there were more little rooms, more little beds and more little everything for everyone.

One day however, the not too little jar went missing. They looked for it all over the house. When they couldn’t find it, they even looked in and around the garden. And when they couldn’t find it still, they sent a search team to the farm, orchard and even the woods. But no, the not too little jar was never to be found.

Upset, the traveller families and the stranger families proposed that the keeper of the not too little jar be replaced. However, members of the original family were offended. The keeper of the not too little jar you see, was one of their own.

“This is our home. You have no right to demand a change,” some of them said, “Even if it was the keeper who took the not too little jar, so be it!”

That made the traveller family and the stranger family very sad. They had lived together and worked together for far too long to be told they had no rights. They felt unappreciated and exploited.

“If we are unwanted here, we shall leave,” they said.

No one asked them to stay.

And so they left the little home on the mountain top, looking for a new place to live.

Soon it was just the original family. They had the little house on the mountain top all to themselves. In the beginning, they were excited but as time passed, they found it really hard to take care of everything by themselves.

They did not have any help to water the flowers, fertilize the vegetables, harvest the fruits, feed the livestock and carry out the household chores. Soon, the flowers, vegetables, trees and animals in the farm died. And the little house on the mountain top itself started showing its wear and tear.

From a pretty little house on the mountain top, it deteriorated into an unattractive, old shack that no one wanted to live in.

Every day, the family members would sit by the little window with the pale blue trimmings hoping someone walking by would knock on the door asking for a place to stay or at the least for a glass of water. But no one came. Not even a skunk.

And so the family had to spend the rest of their lives alone, in the quiet little house on the mountain top without any laughter or love to embrace their lives.