"Jose, Juan, Carlitos!" called Mom to my three brothers who, without wasting any time ran into the house.

Juan, the oldest, asked, "What can we do for you Mom?"

With a smiling face, she replied, "I have a little gold horse that I will give to one of you."

And right away they all started screaming for her to give it to them. But Mom said to my brothers, "You three are going to have a little contest. I am going to send all three of you into the forest, and the one who brings me the most beautiful green leaves will get the golden horse."

Jose, the second oldest, asked, "May Juan and I look for leaves together, and if we win, we both get to keep the golden horse?"

"That will be fine."

And so, poor Carlitos, the youngest, was left to search for green leaves all by himself. I was wishing I could help him, but unfortunately I was only a baby at the time and there was not much I could do.

In a few hours, my brothers were off, trying to find beautiful green leaves. Jose and Juan looked very happy, but poor Carlitos looked sad and lonely. When they got to the forest, Jose and Juan started to look at all the trees, to see which had the most beautiful green leaves, but none could satisfy them.

Carlitos just sat on a rock near an old, ugly tree, thinking of his brothers getting the wonderful horse, which was worth a fortune. As Carlitos sat there, he felt something fall on his shoulder from that ugly old tree.

When he turned his head to see what it was, he noticed that it was a beautiful green leaf. He looked up, and there, on that ugly old tree were lots of beautiful green leaves, the most beautiful leaves Carlitos had ever seen. He ran to get the basket which he had brought with him and noticed that his brothers were still searching for leaves. Then he went back to the tree which contained all the beautiful leaves and got all of them into his basket. Now he was sure to win. He started running for home.

His jealous brothers saw him, and when they noticed his basketful of leaves, they ran after him and stopped him. When they saw how beautiful Carlitos' leaves were, they told him that they would beat him up unless he gave them the leaves. But Carlitos said, "No," and they really got angry.

When Carlitos saw the look on their faces, he ran faster than ever, but they caught up with him. They beat him up. Carlitos then told them that if they didn't give him back his leaves he would tell Mom that they had taken them, so they decided to do something else. They made up a plan that only crazy people would think of doing.

First, they threw rocks at Carlitos until he was bleeding, almost to death; next they threw him over a big cliff. Then, the maniacs went home and told their mother that when they had left the forest, Carlitos had still been looking for leaves.

All that night Mom was worried about Carlitos. The next day she told Jose and Juan to go back to the forest and look for Carlitos. They went into the forest, to the place where they had killed their brother; but to their surprise, he wasn't there. There was only a little flower, which when they got near it began to sing:

Please, nice people,
Could you take me home?
My older brothers have killed me
For a little golden horse.

The two evil brothers were perplexed. They were left speechless. They picked the flower and took it home, for they were too dumb to realize that the little flower, in a few words, was telling what had happened the day they went looking for leaves.

When they gave it to their mother, the little flower started singing again. And when it finished its little song, Mom asked Jose and Juan what had really happened to Carlitos. Instead of answering her, they just ran out of the house, and in all their hurry, tripped over some big rocks and fell over a cliff to their deaths.


Now I have that little flower, which sometimes sings to me:

Please, nice brother,
Could you please listen to me?
For a little golden horse
My two brothers gave Their lives.