ANIMAL STORIES retold from the PANCHATANTRA
THE DREAMER
 
 
There was a poor man, who was too lazy to work.  Instead he begged and lived on the alms that he collected.  He was just able to survive.  One day, a lady gave him more than the normal volume of flour.  The man was thrilled.  He used some and the rest he stored in a pot and hung it up to protect it from rats.

He went to bed looking at his saving and started day dreaming.  "If I save  this flour till a famine day, it will fetch a good price" he thought.  He continued with his fantastic day dreaming.
With that money, he would buy a pair of goats.  Soon he would have a whole flock of goats.
He would sell them and with the money, buy a bull and a cow.  Soon, he would have a whole herd of cows.
He would sell these and buy a pair of horses.  He would soon have several horses, become rich, buy a huge house, marry a rich girl and live happily.
Soon they would have a son, who in due course would start crawling.  The child would go near the horses. And in his anger with his wife for not taking good care of the child, he would hit her.

So dreaming, he hit the pot with a stick, dreaming that he was hitting his dream wife.

Alas, his dreams all came to an end.  He woke up with a shock to see the flour had all fallen to the ground.

"Do not count your chicken before they are hatched".
 

 

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