The Coyote Under the Table/El Coyote Debajo de la Mesa by Joe Hayes Page A

leave her. She wanted to go too, but the snake said it wasn’t possible. She begged and pleaded, and finally the snake said, “This is the best I can do for you. Follow my track in the morning. When you arrive at the end of the trail, make a wish for what you need most. You will receive it.”
    In the morning, the girl ran to the barrel and saw that the snake was gone. From her window she could see its trail leading away from the house, and she followed the trail. It led her far away, to lands she had never even heard of before. And then it led her into a dry, empty desert. The trail began to grow more and more faint. In the middle of a barren plain, the snake trail disappeared.
    The girl looked all around her and saw nothing but the most desolate country she could imagine. Not a green tree or bush grew in that land. The girl thought of her father’s comfortable little house with shady trees all around it. She sat on the ground and covered her face with her hands and began to cry.
    From the clear blue sky above her a gentle rain began to fall. It was just as the snake had told her! The thought made her laugh. Pale flowers grew up all around her—blue and pink and white flowers. A song sprang from her lips, and bright flowers—red and yellow and orange—sprang up.
    â€œI wish I had a good house to live in, right here on this spot,” the girl said aloud. And the wish was granted. When she looked over her shoulder, a snug little house stood behind her. The girl began living in the house. Whenever she felt happy and sang or laughed, flowers grew around the house. When she missed her father and cried, rain fell to feed the flowers. Soon the house sat in the center of a beautiful garden with flowers and fruit trees of all sorts.
    But the garden was in the middle of a country that was dry and dying. No one could grow anything. No one could find grass for their animals to eat, nor water for them to drink. Not even the king himself could coax a green sprout from the fields that surrounded his palace.
    Now, the king owned a flock of sheep. They had once been fat, healthy animals, but they had grown so thin and weak that the king feared they would all die. One day he told his shepherd, “Take my sheep and drive them to the far mountains. There is nothing for them to eat here, and in the mountains some grass may still be growing.”
    So the shepherd drove the sheep away from the king’s lands. He hadn’t traveled a third of the way to the mountains when he saw a little house standing in the middle of a rich garden.
    No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t keep the sheep from running to the garden and eating. He was afraid the owner of the garden would be angry, but the girl who lived in the house just smiled to see the sheep eating so greedily. At the end of the day, she even gave the shepherd a basket of fruit to take home with him.
    When the shepherd returned to the king’s palace that evening, the king was amazed to see how fat and contented his sheep looked. He was even more amazed to see the basket of fruit.
    â€œWhere does this fruit come from?” he asked the shepherd. “And where did you find green food for my sheep to eat?”
    The shepherd told the king about the house in the middle of a garden of fruit and flowers, and about the gentle girl who lived in it. “I must meet this girl,” the king said. “Go tomorrow and invite her to have dinner with me.”
    The next day the shepherd returned to the garden and invited the girl to dine with the king. But the girl replied, “If the king would like me to visit him, let him come himself and invite me.”
    The following day the king himself rode to the girl’s house and invited her to join him for dinner. She traveled back with him to the palace, and that evening as they ate, the king asked her to tell him the story of her life. As the story unfolded, a look of wonder came over the king’s