‘Old is Gold’
A phrase that we often find ourselves utter, wherever we talk of something that has been around for ages, and yet has a ‘precious’ tag to it. Of course, it is compared to ‘gold’ only because, well:
‘Gold is perhaps one of the most ‘precious’ things in the world!’
In this article from the EuroKids stable, we are happy to present to all kids out there, a story that will get them as excited about gold as adults were during the California Gold Rush of 1848! The story we are talking about is The Miser and his Gold Short Story. One of Aesop’s timeless fables, this one is sure to not only engage the minds of young kids, but of their parents as well!
Are you filled with a sense of intrigue already, to know more about The Miser and His Gold? Read on, and find yourself engrossed as you listen to the Miser and his Gold Short story, that is backed with a powerful moral message for your little ones.
Table of Contents
- The Miser and his Gold Short Story for Kids
- The Moral of the Miser and His Gold Short Story
- Lessons to be learned by Kids from The Miser and his Gold Short Story
The Miser and His Gold Short Story for Kids
Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was an elderly gentleman who lived in a house that had a garden attached to it. Now, it was in that very garden, that the gentleman hid all his gold. The hiding place was a small pit in the garden, which the gentleman had carefully covered with stones, lest anyone discover the gold hidden inside.
Now, every single night, before going to bed, the old man would go to this pit in the garden, to count the gold that he had been steadily accumulating over the years. Not once did he take out any of his gold coins, with the idea of spending his money.
Little did the miser know that there was a thief who was monitoring his actions. One day, the thief went to the garden in the late evening where all the gold was hidden, and stole all the gold coins. The next day, when the miser went to the pit to count his gold, he was alarmed to find all his gold missing.
“Help me! My gold has been stolen!” He cried out loud.
On hearing the loud shrieks of the elderly gentleman, his neighbour came out and asked the man what was wrong. He told him what had happened, to which the neighbour replied:
“Why on earth did you not store the gold in the environs of your home itself? That way the gold would be readily available whenever you needed to spend it. What’s more, the thief would have a hard time finding it, too.”
When the farmer heard this, he said with a look of disbelief in his eyes,
“Why on earth would I ever want to spend my money?I have never wanted to buy anything with it.”
Upon hearing this, the neighbour, shocked, threw one of the stones that covered the gold back into the pit, saying:
“In that case, it would have been better if you had stored the stones and not the gold. After all, your gold was as worthless as the stones themselves!”
The Moral of the Miser and His Gold Short Story
The tale of the Miser and his Gold, is indeed one that comes with a robust moral message:
‘Any possession is about as worthy as its usage.’
Lessons to be learned by kids from the Miser and his Gold Short Story
The story of the Miser and His Gold has some valuable lessons to teach our little ones.
- We must not ‘hoard’ things senselessly
- We must live in the present, and enjoy what we have in the ‘now’
- Things have no sense of worth if we don’t use them
We must cherish what we already possess, and use it to ensure the happiness of not only ourselves, but also the people that we hold near and dear. Simply ‘hoarding’ things will lead us to have a ‘miserly’ attitude for life.
We all have so many possessions, but do we know how many ‘years’ we have in our lives? It is best to spend our money and use the things we have in the present moment, because we don’t know not only how long we might live, but also, when all our wealth might be gone.
We might have the fanciest things that money can buy, but they are really worth nothing if we don’t make use of them. While it is important to save money, it is also important to spend it! In the end, the elderly gentleman was never going to take all those gold coins that he hid in his garden, along with him when he went to heaven!
At EuroKids we believe that the Miser and his Gold short story is an excellent story to tell your children, to help them learn the art of living without fear. Narrate this wonderful tale to them today, and set them off on the path towards living life in the ‘now’!
