The Giant Watermelon
故事全文
One day, two brothers were dividing the family inheritance. The selfish older brother kept the fertile fields for himself, and gave the sandy fields to his younger brother, who had no choice but to plant watermelons. The younger brother was very hardworking, and soon his fields were full of big, juicy watermelons. But the next day, the younger brother found that half of his watermelons were gone. Some were eaten and had holes in them. The younger brother looked around and saw a troop of monkeys running around in his field. So, he ran after them with his shovel, shouting, “Naughty monkeys! Go away!” The monkeys quickly ran off.
To protect the remaining watermelons, the younger brother hid himself in a green sack. He carried a gong and a drum, and planned to scare the monkeys away by making loud noises when they tried to steal his watermelons. However, the younger brother fell asleep while waiting, and the monkeys, thinking that the green sack was a giant watermelon, carried it back to their cave to celebrate.
When the younger brother woke up, he peeped out of the sack and saw the monkeys using golden cups to celebrate the picking of the ‘giant watermelon’. The younger brother began to bang the drum and hit the gong loudly. The monkeys got scared and ran away, dropping their golden and silver cups. So, the younger brother took the cups home and made a small fortune.
When the selfish brother found out what happened, he decided to trick the monkeys too. He also hid in a green sack and pretended to be a giant watermelon. Sure enough, the monkeys began to carry him back to their cave. However, while crossing a single-plank bridge, the older brother had to urinate because he had sneakily eaten too many watermelons. When the monkeys smelled his stinky urine, they thought that the giant watermelon must be rotten. So, they threw the sack off the bridge and into the river. The older brother had a really tough time getting out of the sack. From then on, he never dared to take advantage of his younger brother again.
