The Terrible Lummox

There once was a terrible Lummox
A horrendous beast with three stomachs
While one stomach had lunch, another had dinner;
The third then had breakfast lest he get thinner.
A Lummox appetite was voracious;
his behavior abhorrent and salacious.
There seemed no end to the beast's appetite.
He'd clean out a town leaving no crumb in sight.
He stomped with a ruckus to each village
entering homes which then he would pillage.
The path was wide with his destruction.
There seemed no end to his consumption.
From his mouth flowed continuous drool
It was green and smelled like rancid gruel.
When he turned his head, there flew a wave of spittle
Nearly drowning the townsfolk being so little.
The townspeople were starving and sick of the mess;
If they had food, came the Lummox causing distress.
They thought and they planned; they planned and they thought
but all of their ideas thus came to naught.
One day while they discussed what to do
There spoke a little boy with one brown shoe.
“I have an idea,” he said soft-spokenly.
“Go ahead." said the mayor, half-jokingly.
“We can teach the Lummox how to garden;
then maybe he won't be bad but smartened.”
The townspeople broke into laughter.
“Lad, he belongs in the hereafter!”
One man yelled out. The boy gulped and held back tears.
A woman yelled, “He's been scaring us for years!”
The boy in the shoe stood up tall as he could.
“If we can just try to teach him how to be good.”
“Maybe he has a point.” The Mayor admitted,
hoping his statement wouldn't get him evicted.
A clamor of voices then arose from the crowd,
The crowd was wanting to try but not knowing how.
A little girl meekly then whispered a bit,
“We could leave a trail of food straight to a pit.”
A hunter shouted. “We'll can make a hole really deep.
He'll fall in for good if we make the sides really steep.
At last, we'll finally be able to get some sleep.”
A farmer shouted, “He won't be eating all my sheep.”
At long last the townspeople finally had a great plan;
very soon they picked the site where this giant would land.
They started in shifts night and day with all their worth,
Each person dug out fifteen times their weight in earth.
The hole was completed and covered with thatch.
With large baskets of food, they made a long path.
It wasn't long before the Lummox picked up the scent.
He chomped the baskets chewing as he hungrily went.
He reached the last basket in the center of the ditch,
And he fell down hard on his head and all turned to pitch.
He awoke and tried to escape that canyon.
He tried until all his hope was abandoned.
Folks slowly gathered atop of the hole
and looked down at the poor Lummox below.
“Please, oh please, let me out of this rut.
Can't you hear rumblings in all my guts?”
The defeated Lummox pleaded,
his cries going all but unheeded.
“What about our pleas when we begged you to stop?”
“Every year you have destroyed all of our crops!”
One by one all the townspeople had their say,
which further ruined the Lummox's day.
The mayor asked, “Why should we free you just to scare us?
We've put up with you for too long. End this must!”
“I'm sorry, I am,” the Lummox, said after a pause.
“I just have a large appetite; it's one of my flaws.
I really do not mean to cause you alarm.
I never have done any of you real harm.
I just like to eat and I need to, to live,
I take what I need; I have nothing to give.”
“Have you ever tried asking for help?”
said the same little brown-shoed young whelp.
“I have not because I thought you would say ‘No!'
and then just point to the road and tell me to go.”
“Well, if we help you learn to take care of yourself,
do you promise not to bother anyone else?”
“Yes, I will. I will keep my word.” The Lummox looked sad.
The people were touched by this and were no longer mad.
After a quick vote of the crowd led by the mayor,
The Lummox was then freed with a giant conveyor.
They found some land on which he could farm.
The Lummox never again caused harm.

Sometimes it's hard to understand other's behavior
but we must all make the effort to be in their favor.

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