The Monkey and the Turtle

One humid sunny afternoon, a painted turtle was resting on the riverbank when she saw something floating downstream. It wasn’t clear what it was. She took another look and saw that it was a banana tree.

She was overjoyed at such a treasure, because she was an avid gardener. She jumped into the water, caught the tree by a branch and part of its trunk, and brought it to the bank. But when she wanted to pull it out, she realized it was much too heavy for her to lug. She left it sitting in the water and went to find help.

She met a long-tailed monkey on the way. “Hello, monkey,” she said. “Would you please help me pull a banana tree out of the water? I’d like to plant it in my garden.”

“Sure, I’ll help. But I’ll also want half of the tree’s fruit in return,” said the monkey, who was a little lazy, a little greedy and he thought he was more than a little smart.

The turtle agreed and so, tugging and toiling, puffing and huffing, together they pulled the tree all of the way to the turtle’s garden. It was filled with wild raspberry bushes and pigweed and she even had a few palm trees for sago to eat.

“Alright, let’s plant the tree and when the bananas are ripe and ready, we’ll divide them as we agreed,” suggested the turtle.

Well, the impatient little monkey didn’t want to wait for his share. He demanded that the turtle give him half of the tree Right! Now! He even jumped up and down to show he was serious.

The turtle reluctantly divided the tree in half. The monkey took the upper green part and left the lower part - the part with…