The Fisherman

• Stefan Gupte, Grade 4
• Short Story
• 2017

This is a story about a fisherman who depended on fishing so he can feed his wife and children. One day there was an announcement on the radio that the rest of the week will be really stormy. This left him without a job and so that meant no income. One night he came up with an idea to make wooden toys for children as he liked carving wood. That night he started carving blocks of wood, he created boats, different types of fish, cars and trains. The next morning he went to the market place to set up his stall. After a while people started to come, but unfortunately no one came to his stall. A little while later a little girl came over with her mum to look at the toys.

“Oh mummy can I please have one of those toys, please mummy please” she pleaded. “No, you’ve got enough toys at home” said the mother. The little girl was upset.

The mother found the wooden toys interesting and turned back heading towards the stall. “How much for one of those boats” she asked. The fisherman answered “$3 for 1 or $5 for a set of 2”. “Okay, I’ll take 2 sets”, said the mother. Soon other people started to look at the fisherman’s stall and bought his toys. The fisherman was extremely happy. He sold all his toys but he kept two for his children. That night the fisherman went home to his children and surprised them with the new toys. They were thrilled. His wife was so happy he had a new standby job and went to bed happy.

The fisherman thought of new ideas of making carved wooden toys for children. He would take his children to the market to help him sell the toys to attract crowd so that he could earn more money. The children were very pleased. Whenever the weather was bad the fisherman would take his toys to the market so that he could keep earning money and look after his family.