hildren Throwing Stones at Animals

aron Von Lodge was the head of a small country known as Lilliland near Switzerland. The time was the early 1900s.

Lilliland was a country of great natural beauty from the Alpine Mountains to the shimmering Castle Lake. Baron Von Lodge loved the scenic beauty, as did his ancestors, as stated many times in the early historical documents over the past 1,000 years.

One late afternoon while riding on his favorite horse, Ridgeway, the Baron noticed some schoolboys walking home from school. They would stop every few feet and pick up some small stones and throw the stones into the farmer's field. Then the Baron noticed, to his horror, that they were not just throwing the stones into the grass in the field but at some cows and horses. The Baron immediately went to the farmer to inquire whether this incident was the first time, or if there had been a pattern to this behavior from the schoolboys in the past. The farmer was surprised to see Baron Von Lodge ride up to his farmhouse. After a brief visit, the Baron was informed that it was just the same three boys and no one else. The farmer knew the three boys and told their parents, but nothing was ever done. The parents thought the matter was not important because they were just cows and horses. That made the Baron very angry and concerned. The parents were all asked to appear at Lilliland Castle with the principal of the school along with the three boys and the farmer.

The parents admitted that they had taken the matter too lightly and that they did not think that cows and horses were important. The Baron explained to the parents why the cows and horses were so important, as well as the swans on Castle Lake, and all of the other animals in Lilliland whether they were wild or domestic. The Baron said that the boys would have to come to the castle stable for three weeks everyday after school and on weekends to clean out the stables, apologize to the farmer, and that the parents should take their rearing responsibilities much more seriously. The people of Lilliland loved all their animals very much.