The Jackal and the Peahen

The Jackal and the Peahen

Once, at the edge of a green garden, lived a jackal and a peahen. They were very different, but for a long time they got along wonderfully.

Each morning the jackal came to an old plum tree where the peahen liked to walk and called, “Good morning, neighbour! What news is there today?”

“Good morning, friend!” the peahen replied. “Sit in the shade and tell me where you have travelled.”

They shared food and spoke of rain and sunshine, of paths across the fields, and of birds flying high above the garden. The peahen knew countless stories, while the jackal could imitate other animals’ voices so amusingly that she sometimes laughed until tears came.

One day they had lunch together. The peahen brought a basket of ripe plums. The jackal brought his food too, and both ate well.

When lunch was over, the peahen gathered all the plum stones, scratched up the soft earth with her feet, and planted them in an even row.

“Why are you doing that?” asked the jackal.

“My mother taught me,” said the peahen. “If you have eaten a fruit, you need not throw away its stone. You can plant it. Perhaps one day a tree will grow here, and someone else will enjoy its fruit.”

The jackal looked at the neat row in the earth and suddenly felt awkward. It seemed to him that the peahen was speaking too instructively, as though only she knew the right way to live.

But instead of simply saying so, the jackal lifted his nose.

“Pah! I always plant everything too,” he declared. “It is an old habit of mine.”

“Really?” the peahen asked with interest.

“Very much so!”

The jackal hurriedly collected the stones left from his own meal, dug several holes nearby, and buried them.

The next morning the friends came to inspect their beds.

“Nothing yet,” said the peahen. “We must wait.”

A week passed. Then another. At last thin green shoots appeared above the peahen’s plum stones.

“Look!” she cried happily. “They are growing!”

The jackal looked at his own holes. Nothing was there.

“Mine are simply not in a hurry,” he said. “Big plants always think for a long time before coming out of the ground.”

The peahen narrowed her eyes.

“Of course. Perhaps they will think for a whole year?”

“Perhaps a year,” muttered the jackal.

Every day the plum shoots grew stronger. But in the place where the jackal had buried his stones, the earth remained bare.

The peahen had already understood that her friend had boasted about something he did not know. At first she only found it funny. But later she began to tease the jackal whenever they came to the garden.

“Well, great gardener?” she would ask. “Has your remarkable crop appeared yet?”

The jackal frowned.

“Not yet.”

“What slow plants!” the peahen continued. “They must have very important business underground.”

At first the jackal said nothing. Then he began to grow angry. And the peahen, noticing this, did not stop.

Time passed. The young plum trees grew taller, flowered with white blossoms, and then bore fruit. On a sunny day the plums ripened—round, juicy, and sweet.

The peahen sat beneath the tree, enjoying plums. Just then the jackal returned from the field. He had found no food that day and was hungry and tired.

“What wonderful plums!” said the peahen. “What a pity your stones never gave a harvest.”

The jackal clenched his teeth.

“Do not start.”

But the peahen laughed again.

“Perhaps wait another ten years? Then you may have a whole forest!”

“I said enough,” the jackal said quietly.

But the peahen had become carried away by her own joke.

“Oh, how angry you are! Shall I leave you a few plums, so you do not starve before your great harvest?”

This time the jackal could bear it no longer. He sprang forward.

The peahen cried out in surprise, but at the last moment spread her wings and flew to the lowest branch of the plum tree. The jackal stopped beneath it, breathing heavily.

Silence fell.

The peahen was not laughing any more.

“You wanted to catch me,” she said.

The jackal lowered his head.

“I was very angry.”

“I saw that you were angry,” replied the peahen. “And I kept teasing you anyway. That was not kind.”

The jackal was silent for a little while. Then he said, “And I lied because I was ashamed to admit that I did not know whether anything could be grown from those stones. Then every joke of yours reminded me of my boasting. But that does not give me the right to frighten you.”

The peahen looked at him carefully from the branch.

“And what now?”

“Now I will go,” said the jackal. “I need to cool down. And if you ever wish to speak to me again, I will no longer pretend that I know everything in the world.”

He had already started along the path when a ripe plum fell from above and landed softly on the ground near his paws.

The jackal looked up.

“Is that for me?”

“It is not a reward for your boasting,” said the peahen. “It is simply that no one should stay hungry because of a quarrel.”

The jackal smiled at the corner of his mouth.

“Thank you.”

For the next few days they did not meet. The peahen tended the young trees and thought that even truthful words can hurt if they are used on purpose to prick a friend. The jackal wandered through the fields and remembered how easily one small lie had grown into a great hurt.

Then one morning he came to the plum garden again.

“Good morning, neighbour,” he said. “I have brought a bucket of water for your trees. This I know for certain: if the earth is dry, it must be given a drink.”

The peahen came down from the branch.

“And I have prepared plums for two. I promise not to joke where a joke has stopped being funny.”

They sat in the shade as they had before. This time the jackal did not boast, and the peahen did not mock.

And the young plum garden reminded them for a long time of one simple truth: friendship does not grow from wanting to be cleverer than someone else, but from honesty, respect, and knowing when to stop.

May this story leave a little light in your heart ✨