For a long time in the world there were no flies. The world was better for it because as far as people are concerned there is nothing good that can be said of flies.

They afflict our health in countless ways. This story is about what happened to bring flies into the world.

There was a farmer and his wife. They had no children. They had a small farm on which the soil wasn't fertile enough. The fruit and vegetables they planted did not grow well, most of the time. Most of the time the farmer and his wife did not have enough to eat. They had even less to eat when they had to sell some of the fruit and vegetables to get money to buy clothes and other things that they could not grow or make for themselves. It was hard for them.

Since their fruit and vegetables were small, people did not pay much for the fruit and vegetables the farmer sold.

One of the days when the farmer and his wife were at the market in the town selling their few fruit and vegetables, they saw an old lady sitting at the side of the road. They were sad for her. They gave her a fruit and asked her about her life.

She thanked them for the fruit and told them that she had walked from far away. She had nothing because the town in which she lived had been washed away by heavy rain and a river flood. Everyone in the town had been washed away. Her whole family had been washed away. She was trying to find another place in which to live.

When people heard that the town in which she had lived had been washed away with everybody, they said she was bad luck. They did not want to have anything to do with her.

The farmer and his wife said to her that she could come and live with them. She thanked them and said she would help them on the farm.

The three worked very hard on the farm. Now that there were three of them the farmer and his wife had even less to eat. But they were happy that they were helping the old lady who had nothing, and nobody in the world to care for her.

The old lady worked hard and long each day on the farm. The farmer and his wife had to ask her to not work so hard because it was unhealthy. The old lady thanked them for their concern. She kept on working hard for them because they were so kind to her.

One day as the old lady was working in the hot sun on the farm she came upon a small animal that was trapped under a branch that had fallen on it. The animal was groaning in pain. The old lady thought, "My luck is changing! This is good luck for all of us because I can kill this animal and take it back to the farm and cook it and the three of us will have a good meal, at last!"

She picked up a rock to bash the little animal on the head. The animal looked so helpless the old lady felt sorry for it. Instead of killing it, she struggled to lift the branch to free the small animal. When the animal was free the old lady had to sit on the ground to rest.

The small animal did not run off after the old lady had freed it. It sat there and looked at her. She looked at it and said to it "Go away, little one. I am still tempted to kill you to cook you. Now that you are free to run off, I might not feel sorry for you enough to not bash you on the head. Go! Run away!"

The small animal did not run off. It walked closer to the old lady and spoke to her. Of course the old lady did not believe she was hearing an animal talk. She listened to what it had to say, anyway. If she was not so tired and weak she would have been frightened enough to run away from that small talking animal.

The small animal said, "Since you were so kind to me when you did not have to be, I will give you the genius to be a good farmer. Everything you plant will grow into the best. You must always work alone far from anybody else. If anyone sees you planting, something bad will happen."

"I cannot stop people from looking at me working. I don't want this gift from you if something bad is going to happen to me."

Too late! The small animal had scurried away into some bushes and did not hear what the old lady said.

When she got home that afternoon she told the farmer and his wife everything that had happened. She told them that she should not work on the farm anymore because if by accident they saw her planting things, a curse would fall on her.

The farmer and his wife did not believe an animal spoke. They thought the old lady had worked so hard in the hot sun she just imagined she heard an animal talking.

Because the farmer and his wife were good people they did not tell her they did not believe her.

They suggested the three of them fence off a part of the small farm with a stone wall. The farmer and his wife would not be able to see the old lady farming, even by accident.

The old lady thanked them. She said that was not such a good idea because the ground the wall would take up would make the farm that much smaller. Already the farm was too small to grow enough fruit and vegetables.

The farmer and his wife said "The parts of the farm we use to grow things will still be the same size. The rocks to build the wall will be dug up from that part of the farm that has been useless to us all along because the rocks prevent us from growing anything."

The three of them built a rock wall to hide a small part of the small farm from the farmer and his wife while they worked on one side and the old lady worked on the other side.

To the amazement of the three farmers the small animal had been right! Everything the old lady planted grew perfectly. Although the space she had to farm was too small to grow enough for the three of them the few fruit and vegetables were so big and tasty, people at the market paid more money to buy them. The three farmers now had enough money to buy more of everything for a more comfortable living.

They had enough money to buy fruit and vegetables from other farmers. Everybody in the town and all the other farmers around were happy for the farmer and his wife and the old lady.

An evil man and his evil friends from a big city came to the market because they had heard of the wonderful fruit and vegetables the farmer and his wife and the old lady were growing.

The evil man spied on the three of them on their farm. He and his evil friends hid themselves in trees that were not on the farm itself. They had binoculars.

They could clearly see the smallest movements of the three farmers as they farmed. The three farmers did not know they were being spied upon by evil people hiding in trees.

These men did not know about the curse of the small animal. The curse fell on them. When they saw the old lady farming they turned into flies.

The curse wasn’t against the old lady herself, but against those who saw her farming. In kindness to others, the old lady had misinterpreted the small animal’s warning.

Nobody ever saw the evil men again. Everybody noticed there were a lot of flies around. That's how the world got flies.

All evil people, sooner rather than later, turn into flies.