Perseverance story: Shake it off - The Donkey in the well story

Once upon a time, there was a farmer who had a small farm not far from a country village. The farmer didn’t have much, but from his small farm, he was able to support his family and was always willing to help his neighbors if they needed anything. One of the few things that he did own, was an old donkey. For years, the donkey had helped him plow his fields, carry his produce into the village, and harnessed to a cart to drive his family to church every Sunday. People in the village near where the farmer lived liked to celebrate all the annual festivals and for the coming new year decided to have huge fireworks. When planning for the New Year’s celebration nobody stopped to think about how this might affect their animals. New Year’s Eve finally came and all the villagers put their animals in the stables for the night, except the farmer near the village didn’t as he didn’t have a stable, he only had a paddock. When nighttime came the farmer closed the donkey in the paddock as he did every night and went to his family to the frontyard to watch the fireworks. The donkey not knowing what was going to happen slumbered peacefully when suddenly the sky exploded with weird flashes of light and loud noises. The poor donkey, not knowing what was going on, fled in terror, blindly running across the paddock trying to get out as far away as possible. As it happened, there was an old well in the paddock that was dry and had no water in it. The farmer never took the time to demolish it and since only the donkey was in the paddock it didn’t bother anybody that the old well was there. Normally the donkey would have avoided the old well but this time in the pitch black of the night and overwhelmed by terror, the donkey stumbled and fell down the old well.

Fortunately, the donkey landed unharmed at the bottom. The next day the farmer was surprised to find his donkey missing and began to search around his property. It wasn’t long before he heard a faint, echoing noise coming from the depth of the wall and to his dismay found his donkey at the bottom. There was no way he could safely climb down the old well to get to the donkey. There wasn’t a long enough ladder in the village to reach the bottom and, even if he had been able to get down. how would he get the donkey out? He called his friends from the village to help. They decided to set up a winch to lower the farmer down to the mule, but the walls of the well were too old and were crumbling at the weight of the winch. It was too risky to try and save the donkey this way. No matter how much they discussed of the danger of the well collapsing there was a second problem. Even if they had lowered someone down, how could he attach a harness to lift the donkey out, in such a small space?

The farmers stood around the well looking down at the donkey, scratching their heads. “It’s hopeless,” said one. “Impossible,” said another. “He is just going to die a slow, miserable death down there,” said a third. “Best put him out of his misery.” So the farmers picked up some shovels and started to throw soil down the well to bury the donkey. At the bottom of the well, the donkey felt dirt falling on his back, so he gave himself a shake and the soil fell around his hooves. The donkey stomped around a little and the soil hardened underneath his hoovers. More soil fell on his back. He shook it off and again stamped around some more. He was surprised to find that, after doing this for a while, the bottom of the well had risen an inch or two. He was looking at the wall a little higher than he had been before. The farmer noticed what the donkey was doing and what was happening. He was so ecstatic he yelled at the donkey, “That’s it shake it off,” and told the other farmers to slowly shovel soil down so the donkey could shake it off and stomp it. The more soil the farmers shoveled in, the more the donkey shook it off and trampled it firmly under his hooves. With every shovel, the donkey was higher, and slowly but surely he rose up towards the surface, bit by bit. After a long time shoveling the farmers were happy to see that the donkey got out safe and sound. That night the village again celebrated but this time without any fireworks.