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Long time back, the mice of Mushakvan didn’t know about fire. Once it was very cold, and the mice didn’t dare get out of their holes. They impatiently waited for the winter to end.

One day, it was less cold than usual. The leader of the Mushakvan, Chunchun, called for a meeting.

“Dear friends, as we all know, the weather is very chilly these days. We will have to think of some way to protect ourselves from this extreme cold. Can anyone suggest what we can do to survive this cold?”

“Chunchunji, we should run around the entire day. This will keep our body warm and thus we will feel less cold,” Chaplu Mouse stood up and said.

“Chaplu, this is not the solution to the problem. How long can one run? And even if we do follow it, only the young mice can do it. The small and the old mice won’t be able to do it,” Chunchun said.

“Chunchunji is right. We will have to think of some other way,” Cheenu Mouse said, shivering with cold.

“Let’s sit near the paddy grains inside our holes. You all must have noticed that some grains like paddy emanate heat,” Chantu Mouse suggested.

“Chantu, even this suggestion is not suitable as the heat given out by such grains is not enough to give us much protection in this intense cold,” Chunchun said.

After that, all the mice gave their suggestions but none seemed useful.

“No suggestion is such which can relieve us from this cold,” Chunchun was very disappointed.

“If only we could bring down the heat from the sky, then we would have found some respite from this biting cold.” These words by an old mouse surprised everyone.

“The heat from the sky? How’s that?” Chunky Mouse asked.

“Chunky, some years back a hot lightening had fallen from the sky on our jungle, which had illuminated the entire place and had caused a lot of heat,” another old mouse said.

“So much heat that we started perspiring!”

“Dadaji, it could be summer season which led you to perspire, but you thought that it was because of the heat from the sky!” Chimpu Mouse tried to make fun of the older mice while playing with some stones.

“You should be ashamed, Chimpu. Here we are discussing something very important and you are playing with stones and making fun of us. Throw away these stones,” Chunchun said angrily and snatching the stones from Chimpu’s hands, threw them away.

As soon as the stones touched the ground, sparks flew out of them but nobody noticed this except Chimpu.

fire-was-created

The other mice got busy talking again. Chimpu went close to the stones and looked at them intently. He didn’t find , anything special in the stones. So out of curiosity, he picked them again and threw them on the ground. This time there were no sparks.

Chimpu didn’t lose heart and kept repeating his act again and again. When he saw sparks coming out two-three times he began rubbing two stones against each other.

This caused a spark to emerge which touched Chimpu’s hand. He let out a shriek.

Chimpu, you are not giving us any good suggestion, but you are successfully distracting us by creating noise. This is not good,” an elderly mouse said.

“I have found heat,” Chimpu said while caressing the burn caused by the spark on his hand.

“What do you mean?” When all the mice asked him, Chimpu rubbed the stones and showed them the spark.

“But how will this help? We won’t get any protection with this little heat,” Chaplu said.

“I have seen that the lightening from the sky burns dry trees and plants. We should also collect small dry plants, wood and grass and try the same thing,” one mouse suggested.

fire-was-created

They made a pile and after some efforts, that heap caught fire with the sparks. When heat emanated from the burning mound, the mice felt extremely happy. After all, they had found a way to beat the cold and also to generate the heat from the sky (fire).