A monkey was walking along on a mountain road.
Oh, I’m so hungry. Where can I find some food?
A monkey found a persimmon seed. It's only a seed, but I'll keep it. He started to walk again.
Then, a the monkey saw a mother crab carrying a rice ball. The monkey thought, I’m going to get that rice ball.
The monkey said, Hello, Ms. Crab. I have something really nice. It's a persimmon seed. If you put this in the ground, it will grow and give you a lot of persimmons. I will give you this wonderful persimmon seed, and you can give me the small rice ball.
The mother crab said, But I have a lot of hungry children waiting for me at home. I have to hurry and give them the rice ball.
The monkey said, After you eat that rice ball, you will have nothing. But this persimmon seed is different. It’ll give you fruit every year.
The crab thougt about it for a moment. Then, she gave the monkey the riceball and took the persimmon seed.
When she got home, she planted the seed in the ground with her children. They gave the seed water and sang to it.
Persimmon seed, persimmon seed, grow quickly or we will cut you with our claws.
The seed heard the song. It didn’t want to be cut, so it started to grow quickly. It grew and grew, and soon it was a big tree with a lot of fruits. The mother crab and her children were really happy, but there was one problem. The crabs couldn’t climb up the tree. They were looking up at the persimmons when the monkey came down the road.
I'll pick the fruit for you.
So while the mother crab and her children waited below, the monkey went out up in the tree. Some persimmons were ready. They were orange and sweet. Some other persimmons were not ready yet. They were still green. The monkey took the sweet persimmons and eat ate them all. Under the tree, the crabs got very angry. Then, the monkey threw the green persimmons at the crabs. The mother crab was hit by the hard fruit and was hurt. The children were very sad and went to some friends for help. Their friends, a mortar, a bee and a chestnut decided to go to the monkey’s house. The monkey wasn’t in his house. So they waited for him. The mortar climed up on the roof. The bee waited under the lid of the water pot. And the chestnut waited in the fireplace.
Then the monkey came home.
It's cold. The monkey put his hands near the fireplace to warm them. When.. the chestnut exploded out and hit the monkey in the face. Ouch. Oh, Oh.
The monkey hurried to the water pot to cold cool his face and took off the lid when the bee jumped out and stung the monkey. Ouch. Oh, Oh.
The monkey hurried outside when the mortar jumped off the roof. He jumped on the monkey.
I’m sorry. I'll never be bad again, the monkey said.
Then, the monkey was always good. Well, almost always.