One day long ago, when the Earth was still young, Old Grey Badger was digging himself a new burrow by the riverbank. His big claws scooped out large clods of dirt and flung them behind him into a crumbling heap. He dug and dug for a very long time until finally, it was finished.
He inspected his burrow to make sure it was solid. “Good! Good!” he said to himself once he was satisfied, and ambled off to find something to eat. All the work had made him very hungry. As he padded through the reeds he saw a glint of something white a little ways up ahead.
“Hm! What’s this?” he mumbled to himself as he approached it. He pushed aside the reeds in front of it. It was an egg! He tapped at it with one paw. A hard shell. It was a bird’s egg. He wished to himself that it had been a turtle egg…they were soft and easier to open. As he closed his jaws around it to crack the shell, he heard just the
faintest sound from inside the egg, a scratch, scratch, scratch. Now everyone knows that Badgers are probably the grumpiest of animals, but deep inside.
“Well,” he thought to himself, “I am awfully hungry…but I’m also lonely. Nobody ever visits me. Maybe if I take care of this egg I’ll have someone to talk to.”
He wanted to make sure the bird was an orphan, though, so he searched the ground for a nest. No nest. He looked up and scanned the trees for a nest. No nest. He had no idea where it could have come from. But he picked it up gently in his mouth and carried it back to his burrow. After placing it inside, he went down to the riverbank and found some crawdaddies to eat, and them returned to the burrow , curled himself around the egg and fell asleep.
The next morning he awoke to an annoying sound: a steady peck, peck, peck. As he was coming out of his sleep he was irritated and wondered what it was; then in a flash he remembered the egg and sat up, staring at it. There was a crack in the centre of the egg that got a tiny bit wider with each pecking sound. Badger was quite interested at this and he watched. Finally, after some time, the two halves of the egg fell apart and a wet, scraggly raven chick sprawled on the ground.
“Hm! Look at this now. Look at this.” Badger said to himself in amusement.
He cleaned off the chick as best he could and dug up some grubs to feed it with.
Days went by. Raven grew faster and faster, and got hungrier and hungrier, and louder and louder. Old Gray Badger was at his wit’s end. He spent all day finding food for Raven and hardly ever got any sleep. One day he had enough and said, “Raven, you are big enough now. You have to start doing things for yourself.” But Raven screamed, “No, No! I like it when you feed me. I like your burrow! I’s just big enough for me! I’m going to stay here forever, forever!” and he went back to gobbling a pile of grubs that Badger had brought him.
“Hm!” thought Badger to himself. “I adopted him. I raised him and he isn’t even grateful!” Badger was angry, but he loved Raven and continued to feed him, even though he was unhappy most of the time.
Then one day along came some children from a nearby Cree village. They were playing in the river, splashing, laughing, when one of them saw some movement on the bank and spotted Old Grey Badger by his burrow with Raven. “Sh!” the girl said to the others. “Look!” and she pointed at the two animals.
Badger, as usual, was hobbling about on his stumpy legs, trying to find food for complaining Raven. The children watched wide-eyed. They had never seen a Badger feeding a Raven before. Finally Badger, not being able to find any nearby food, lumbered off elsewhere to find some, leaving Raven behind for the moment in his burrow.
The girls and boys were amazed. “Look at this!” said one girl to another, “This Badger is feeding the big Raven all by himself!” “And he looks so busy at it,” said a boy. “Like he never gets a moments’ rest!”
“That Raven looks big and greedy,” announced another girl. “That Badger works hard for him. And the Raven doesn’t even care!” and presently the children became occupied with something else, and left.
Raven sat soberly in the burrow. He had good ears. He had heard what the children had said. And now he felt bad. “Maybe it’s true, ” he thought. “I am big and greedy. Badger adopted me when he could have eaten me. The least I can do is show some respect.” Soon Badger returned with another mouthful of grubs and almost dropped them at what he saw: Raven had cleaned out the burrow! Not a bone or rock was in it, and what was more, he had a pile of crawdaddies waiting for Badger.
“I’ve been a bad bird,” said Raven, “and I want to do my part to show I care.” So from then on he fed himself, and helped Old Grey Badger out now and then. Raven soon was large enough to fly and left the burrow to visit with other Ravens, but he came by every day to see Badger, and they were happy.
The moral: Respect your parents!