Once upon a time there was a man who loved his little son so much that he
gave him presents all the time. He lived so far from the nearest village that
he couldn't buy his son
anything. But he didn't have to. Whenever
he wanted to give his son a present, he'd design it
himself, build it from scratch, all by himself, and then give it to his son.
That's how much he loved
his son, and his son loved him in return.
One day, the little boy asked his father if he could have a piano. So,
right away, the father designed a piano, and then started building it right
there in their humble shack.
As he was making the piano, his noisy work was observed by a family of
mice that lived in the wall of the house. As they watched, one mouse said to
another, "What is the giant
building now?" "I don't know," replied another, "but it looks like a
huge box of some kind." "Maybe it's a new mouse house
just for us!" cried a baby
mouse. "Yes, that's it!" they all squeaked
excitedly, "We won't have to live in
these cold, damp walls any more! What a wonderful giant he is! Let's move into our new
house the moment he finishes building it! I wonder what it'll be like?"
And so the mice watched the piano grow day by day, thinking that it was
being built for them, not knowing that the father was really building it for
his son.
One day when the boy was outside playing, his father finished building
the piano. The mice watched as the father sat down in front of it, paused a
moment, and then reached out and touched it. The mice were astonished at the
beautiful music that suddenly filled the shack. "What is that sound?" they whispered to
one another. "It's coming from our
new mouse house!" said one. "It's finished and the giant
is playing music to welcome us into our new home!" And with much
rejoicing they scurried across the floor and squeezed through the holes into
the back of the piano.
Once inside, they were speechless.The Father left the shack to find his
son and show him his handiwork. When the music stopped, the oldest and wisest
mouse told the others, "Now don't you ever forget
who made this house for us, and who plays that music for us! The giant must
love us very much to do such wonderful things for us! We can never repay him,
so let's always remember
this day! Let's never bother the
giant any more! Let's only go hunting for food at night when he=s asleep! If you
agree, I'll remind you of
this every day of my life!" And they all
enthusiastically agreed.
The father and son sometimes took turns playing the piano, and sometimes
they played it together. And as the boy learned to play, his father was glad
that he had built the piano for him, and even more glad that he had such an
intelligent son. And when they were playing the piano together, they laughed
and sang together with such love and enthusiasm that the whole mountain rang
with the joyful sound.
Now, it came to pass that the
old mouse died. The next oldest mouse took up his cause of passing down to the
next generation the story of the giant who built their mouse house and who
played the music for them. As the months flew by, he too died and was replaced
by the next generation, and the following generation, and so on. Years went by,
and all the original mice died, and none of the new mice had ever actually seen
the giant because they only left at night. More years went by, until the mice
had only their traditions and legends to tell them about the giant.
One day, as the father and
grown-up son were playing the piano together, the oldest mouse was passing
their mousy traditions on to the little ones. One young mouse piped up. "I don't believe it," he said. "I don't think there's any giant out
there. Have you ever seen this giant?" "No," replied the old
mouse, "but I know he's there." "How do you know
that?" challenged the
young mouse; "maybe this mouse
house just came into being by random chance." " but what about
the music?" the old mouse
replied. "If there's no giant making
the music, where does it come from?" The old mouse was
satisfied with this display of logic, but the young mouse was not satisfied. he
shouted, "it's NOT from some
mythical giant! It comes from METAL STRINGS that VIBRATE! I told you
that there wasn't any giant!"
Another mouse, shocked by this
revelation, began to doubt not only everything he'd ever heard
before. The oldest mouse sadly shook his head, but all the other mice began to
argue angrily about whether there really was a giant at all.
The old mouse slipped away
from the other mice and silently crept into unexplored regions inside the
piano. When he saw the vibrating metal strings his heart skipped a beat, but he
kept on going. Then he saw the hammers, and kept on going. Then he saw a tiny
hole in the mouse house wall, with sunlight streaming through it. He peeked out
the hole, and when his eye got accustomed to the light, he knew immediately
that the legend was true, but incomplete. For there in plain view before him
were TWO giants, playing the music with their fingers. And they were clearly
enjoying it so much that the love between them was almost tangible.
That's when it dawned on
the old mouse: they had not seen the giant for far too long and it was time to
show the other mice the giant to they could understand what the music was all
about.