In a bustling marketplace where merchants hawked their wares under the scorching sun and dust swirled around wooden stalls, there lived a young man blessed with extraordinary beauty but cursed with grinding poverty. His face was so handsome that people would stop their conversations just to admire his features, yet his stomach often went empty, and his clothes were worn thin from countless days of hard labor.
This young man worked as a porter, carrying heavy bundles and pushing his wooden barrow through the crowded streets from dawn until dusk. Some days he earned enough coins to buy a simple meal of bread and beans, but other days he went to bed with nothing but water to fill his aching belly. The contrast between his striking appearance and his desperate circumstances made his situation all the more poignant.
One particularly difficult morning, when hunger gnawed at his insides like a wild animal, the young porter found himself at a busy store, lifting and moving goods with trembling arms. His head felt light from lack of food, and he could barely focus on his tasks. Finally, swallowing his pride, he approached the storekeeper with downcast eyes.
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“Please, sir,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper, “could you spare a few coins so I might buy something to eat? I haven’t had food in two days.”
The storekeeper looked up from his ledger and studied the young man’s face with calculating eyes. “You know,” he said slowly, stroking his beard, “you’re wasting your gifts working like this. Look at that face of yours – it’s more beautiful than any woman’s. You don’t need to break your back carrying goods when you could be using your looks to charm wealthy women into giving you money.”
The porter’s eyes widened in shock. “What are you suggesting? Is such a thing even possible?”
“Of course it is,” the storekeeper replied with a knowing smile. “Rich women pay handsomely for the company of a handsome young man.”
“No!” the boy protested, shaking his head vigorously.
“Yes, I tell you! It’s the way of the world.”
The young man’s stomach cramped with hunger, and desperation crept into his voice. “But will you give me money for food today?”
“No,” the storekeeper said firmly. “Find yourself a wealthy woman and spend the evening with her. That’s how you’ll earn your bread. Stop begging like a common vagrant.”
That very afternoon, as if fate were playing its hand, a woman’s voice rang out across the marketplace: “Porter! Porter!” The young man hurried over with his barrow, and when he looked up, he saw it was the storekeeper’s own wife, a woman dressed in fine clothes with jewelry glinting at her throat.
“Take these goods to my house,” she commanded, her eyes lingering on his face longer than necessary.
The porter loaded her purchases and followed her through the winding streets to a comfortable home with whitewashed walls and a small garden. As soon as he had carried everything inside, the woman turned to him with a smile that made his heart race with both excitement and fear.
“You are indeed a very handsome young man,” she said, her voice soft and inviting. “I find myself quite taken with you. Come to my house this evening after my husband has gone to sleep, and I will give you more money than you could earn in a week of carrying goods.”
The porter’s mind reeled as he hurried back to the store. When he told the storekeeper what had happened, carefully omitting the woman’s identity, the merchant’s face grew dark with suspicion.
“Which woman was this?” he demanded. “Where does she live?”
When the young man described the house, the storekeeper’s jaw tightened as he realized his own wife had propositioned the porter. Yet he kept his voice steady and said, “Do exactly as she says. Go to her house tonight.”
That evening, the porter arrived at the woman’s home to find her busy ironing clothes by lamplight, the sweet scent of jasmine drifting through the open windows. She welcomed him with warm tea and honey cakes, and he began to believe his fortunes were finally changing.
But just as they began to talk intimately, heavy footsteps approached the door, followed by urgent knocking. The woman’s face went white with terror.
“My husband!” she whispered frantically. “Quick, hide under this ironing box!”
She pushed the wooden ironing board over him just as her husband burst through the door, his eyes wild with suspicion. He searched every corner of the house, behind curtains, under furniture, inside cupboards – his movements growing more frantic with each empty space.
“Someone’s here! I know someone’s here!” he shouted, but he never thought to look under the ironing board where the porter lay pressed against the floor, hardly daring to breathe.
Finally, frustrated and confused, the husband stomped out into the night. The moment his footsteps faded, the porter scrambled out from his hiding place and fled through the back door like a startled rabbit.
The next morning, the storekeeper questioned him with barely concealed eagerness. “Did you visit that house as planned?”
“Yes,” the porter replied, still shaken by his narrow escape. “But before anything could happen, her husband came home. She hid me under the ironing board, and he searched everywhere but couldn’t find me. As soon as he left, I ran away as fast as my legs could carry me.”
“Will you go back?”
“She asked me to return tonight.”
The same terrifying scene repeated itself the next evening, but this time the clever woman pushed the porter into a large water barrel and placed her washing tub on top. When her husband arrived and began his frantic search, she called out to all the neighbors.
“Come and see!” she cried dramatically. “My husband has lost his mind! He did this yesterday and now he’s doing it again, tearing apart our house like a madman!”
The neighbors gathered, clucking their tongues and shaking their heads as the husband continued his desperate hunt. Hidden in the cold water, the porter could barely keep from shivering as voices echoed above him. When the crowd finally dispersed and the husband left in defeat, the porter emerged dripping wet and escaped into the darkness.
On the third night, the woman hid him in her mother’s precious clothing chest, a beautiful carved box that was considered sacred in their household. When the husband arrived for his nightly search, he examined every inch of the house but stopped short at his mother-in-law’s chest.
“I’ll burn this entire house to the ground!” he declared in his frustration.
“Go ahead,” his wife replied calmly. “It’s your house to burn. But you may not touch my mother’s belongings.”
“Let me open this chest and look inside.”
“Absolutely not. The keys are with my mother, and she would never forgive such disrespect.”
“Then I’ll break it open!”
“Break my mother’s chest? You wouldn’t dare commit such a violation of our family honor.”
Unable to violate this cultural taboo, the husband left once again empty-handed, and the porter made his escape.
By the fourth morning, when the storekeeper asked about his nocturnal adventures, the porter had news that changed everything.
“The woman was so angry about all the arguments that she’s left her husband and gone to her parents’ house,” he reported. “She said she cannot live with a man who has gone completely mad.”
The storekeeper’s face fell. “Come with me,” he said urgently. “I have a job for you.”
Together they traveled to the home of the woman’s parents, where the storekeeper hoped to reconcile with his wife. While the storekeeper went inside to plead his case, the porter waited in the courtyard, where curious neighbors gathered around him.
“Tell us, young man,” they said, “what brings you here with that troubled merchant?”
Feeling safe among these strangers, the porter began recounting his extraordinary adventures the mysterious woman, the hiding places, the angry husband, and all the dramatic scenes he had witnessed. His audience listened with growing amazement, gasping at each narrow escape and laughing at the clever hiding spots.
Just as he reached the climax of his story, describing how he had been hidden in the sacred chest the storekeeper’s wife emerged from the house. Her eyes met his across the courtyard, and a moment of perfect understanding passed between them. She gave him the slightest nod, and he realized that his life depended on what he said next.
“And then,” he announced loudly, his voice carrying clearly to every ear in the courtyard, “as soon as she closed me inside that chest, I woke up!”
The neighbors looked puzzled. “What do you mean, you woke up?”
The porter smiled with the confidence of someone who had just discovered the perfect solution. “It was all a dream! Every single thing I just told you, it was nothing but a vivid dream!”
“Really?” they exclaimed. “Is it possible to dream such detailed and amazing things?”
“Oh yes,” the porter replied earnestly. “Dreams can be more real than waking life itself.”
The neighbors looked at each other in wonder, then rushed to tell the storekeeper what they had learned. “Listen to us,” they said. “This young man has explained everything. It was all just a dream! How could you take such fantasies so seriously? You’ve been acting like a complete madman over something that existed only in a boy’s sleeping mind!”
Moral Lesson
This African folktale teaches us that quick thinking and adaptability can save us from dangerous situations. It also shows how the line between dreams and reality can be used wisely to resolve conflicts and protect relationships. The story celebrates cleverness over brute force and demonstrates that sometimes the most powerful solution is the simplest one.
Knowledge Check
Q1: What circumstances led the handsome porter to seek alternative ways of earning money? A1: The porter was extremely poor and often went without food for days, working hard labor that barely provided enough money to survive, which drove him to consider the storekeeper’s suggestion about using his good looks.
Q2: How did the storekeeper’s wife cleverly hide the porter during her husband’s searches? A2: She used three different hiding spots: first under the ironing board, then in a water barrel with a washing tub on top, and finally in her mother’s sacred clothing chest that her husband couldn’t touch due to cultural taboos.
Q3: What cultural element prevented the husband from searching his mother-in-law’s chest? A3: In this African culture, the mother-in-law’s belongings were considered sacred and untouchable, representing family honor that the husband could not violate even in his desperation to find evidence.
Q4: How did the porter use the concept of dreams to resolve the dangerous situation? A4: When confronted by the woman and needing to protect both of them, the porter cleverly claimed that all his adventures were just a vivid dream, making the husband’s jealous behavior seem foolish and unfounded.
Q5: What does this African folktale teach about survival and quick thinking? A5: The story demonstrates that intelligence and adaptability are more valuable than physical strength or beauty, showing how clever thinking can turn a dangerous situation into a solution that protects everyone involved.
Q6: What role does the marketplace setting play in this traditional African story? A6: The marketplace represents the harsh economic realities of traditional African society, where beauty and poverty could coexist, and where survival often required creative solutions and quick wit rather than conventional morality.
