Animal Stories for Kids
At the foot of the mountain, there was a cabbage field filled with tender, green cabbages. Each cabbage was well-formed, round, and almost as solid as a rock.
In a corner of the field, there grew an insecure little cabbage. During its early days, it hadn’t received enough water or nutrients, so it looked completely different from its companions: its leaves were sparse, it was neither “rolled” nor “hearted.”
“As a cabbage, I…” The little cabbage used all its strength to grow, trying to form a heart. But it was already late autumn, and how much could its efforts achieve?
One day, as the little cabbage was feeling sad in the sunset, it heard a rustling sound. When it looked up, it saw a rabbit.
“Hi, are you hungry?” the insecure little cabbage called out. “If you are, please eat me. Although I don’t have many leaves, each one was grown with care, and they are definitely delicious!”
“Thank you, but I’m not hungry,” said the rabbit. “I came here looking for a place to stay. As a wandering rabbit, it’s shameful to be homeless at my age.”
The little cabbage fell silent. What help could it offer an old, homeless rabbit? As night fell, the rabbit curled up in a patch of dry browning grass, emitting a gentle snoring sound. The little cabbage tried to curl its leaves tighter to fend off the increasingly biting cold. In its dream, it heard the rabbit’s painful groans…
The next day, when the morning sun shone on the little cabbage, it woke up. The rabbit also woke up, moving its stiff body, with frost clinging to the tips of its fur.
“Did you sleep well last night?” asked the little cabbage.
“No, I didn’t. I’m old,” said the rabbit.
“And it’s too cold!”
“The wind is too strong.”
After that, they fell into silence. As the sun rose higher, the warming sensation made them cherish this late autumn morning even more.
“Actually, you could live inside me,” the little cabbage suddenly said boldly, looking at the frost on the rabbit’s fur.
“Thank you!” The rabbit remained expressionless. The little cabbage wasn’t sure if the rabbit accepted its suggestion, feeling a bit dejected but not regretful.
As the last bit of evening glow disappeared, the rabbit came to the little cabbage and touched its leaves. Then, it gently jumped into the little cabbage’s heart. The warm, full feeling was so strange that the little cabbage trembled, shaking every leaf to wrap the rabbit tightly.
The next morning, when the dawn light shone on the little cabbage again, the rabbit jumped out, moving like a prince emerging from a palace. “It was much warmer last night.”
“Yes, I didn’t feel cold either,” said the little cabbage, smiling at the rabbit stretching its fur.
When the first snowfall came, the owner came to harvest the cabbages. As he walked towards the corner, he mumbled to himself, “I remember there was a cabbage here that didn’t form a heart at all.” But he didn’t find the cabbage he remembered. Instead, there was a small, perfectly rounded cabbage, more rolled than any other cabbage in the field.
The owner reached out with his sickle, but wait, what did he see? Inside the cabbage, a snow-white rabbit was sleeping! The owner’s sickle hovered in the air for a long time before he pulled it back.
Snowfall followed snowfall. Winter came and went, and spring arrived. The owner came to the field again. He saw many cabbages that hadn’t been harvested in time and had been damaged by the frost. But of course, that wasn’t what he was there to check. He went to the corner and gently bent down.
What was in the slightly opened leaves of the little cabbage? A rabbit was grooming itself for the morning. It hummed a tune while brushing its snow-white fur, weaving the brushed fur into the little cabbage’s leaves. Each leaf of the little cabbage was a vivid green, radiating like a gem in the early spring field.
“I think I should keep this one for seeds,” the owner mused as he left. The little cabbage was excited. Becoming a seed cabbage was every cabbage’s greatest dream, and it had actually… The coming days would be even more wonderful. It would receive the owner’s meticulous care.
But of course, that wasn’t what excited it the most—it would bloom! To offer its flowers to the friend who had stayed with it through the entire winter—what could be more beautiful than that?
Thank you for reading! ” Sitestorys “
