Week 7 Storytelling: Ungrateful Maggie

Maggie's dogs running away.
Source: Wikipedia

This is the story of Maggie Brown. Maggie was a very beautiful girl, on the inside that is. Despite her lovely outward appearance, Maggie had a very cold heart. As a result, Maggie did not have very many friends.

However, there was a young boy by the name of Greg who thought she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, and would do anything to be with her. Unfortunately, Maggie and her bitter personality would never even give Greg the time of day. One day, in spite of her lack of interest in Greg, Maggie realized that she needed him very much…

Maggie was walking her three dogs through the park when all of a sudden a stray cat darted across the sidewalk. Naturally, her dogs took off running after the cat, dragging Maggie behind them.

Although she yelled for the dogs to heal, they kept on chasing the cat. After being drug several yards across the park, Maggie finally let go of the leash. She attempted to stand up and chase after her dogs, but immediately fell back to the ground and grabbed her ankle in pain.

Hopelessly she sat there and watched her dogs run until she could no longer see them. Knowing that her dogs were gone and her ankle was hurt, Maggie began to cry.

Just then Greg happened to be walking by. Seeing that Maggie was clearly distressed, he stopped to help her. Realizing that he was her only hope, she obliged when he offered to give her a ride home.

Greg thought this might finally be his chance to win over Maggie. However, this did not prove to be the case. When Greg pulled up to Maggie’s house, he offered to walk her up to her front door. But Maggie would not have any part in that. Without so much as a thank you, she got out of his car and hobbled up to her porch.

Despite this let down, Greg would not be defeated. He suddenly came up with a great idea. He decided that he would go back to the park and find her dogs. He thought after he found her dogs and brought them back to her, there would be no way she could still turn him down.

Luckily, upon returning to the park, Greg immediately found Maggie’s dogs. The dogs were happy to see a familiar face and instantly ran up to Greg. So he loaded the dogs up and took them back to Maggie’s house.

However, Maggie was not grateful for Greg’s generous deed. In fact, she slammed the door in his face without even taking back her dogs. Realizing how selfish and coldhearted she was, Greg took Maggie’s dogs home with him. And from that day on, Greg lived happily with Maggie’s dogs, and they were very grateful for him.

Author's Note

This story was based on the Tibetan Folktale The Ingratitude of Man .  In the original story, there was a man and three animals who fell into a trench. Luckily, there was a traveler passing by who lowered a rope and rescued all of them. The man and the animals all promised to repay the traveler somehow. The traveler believed the man, but scorned the animals. He did not believe there was anyway the animals could pay him back. However, the man was very ungrateful for the traveler's help, and actually ended up landing the traveler in jail. In contrast, the animals were grateful for the traveler and helped him get out of jail. 

In my story I kept the theme of the animals being appreciative and the girl being unappreciative. I thought this was very symbolic of how people in today's society can be. 

Bibliography

Book: Tibetan Folk Tales

Author: A.L. Shelton 

Year: 1925

Web Source: Sacred Text