Once upon a time in a small village, there lived an old widow called Mbuya. She was old and frail and struggled each day to manage her homestead.  

One day as she was walking through the woods looking for firewood, she found an orphaned squirrel in the forest. 

After looking around for its nest and not finding one, she felt pity for it. She picked it up took it back home and nursed it back to health.

Once it was well, she taught it to do small chores around the house.

However, some of the other villagers grew jealous of the assistance the squirrel provided. They complained to the king, saying it was unnatural for a person to have a wild animal as a pet. So they reported it to the king and the king summoned the widow to his quarters to explain herself.

After the proceedings of the trial the king sat down with other chiefs and ministers  and said, “I don't see that Mbuya is committing a crime, so much so that we can execute her or her squirrel because she is using it to do chores for her. Don't we also have other animals that help us, like horses or dogs that we use to do some work for us? For example taking care of the house like dogs that bark at night. Leave her and her squirrel alone. Whoever can find a wild thing that they can use, let them use it." 

Mbuya was then let go. She was very happy. 

All the people of the village were now saying let us also get animals to teach so that we can have helpers too.

It so happened that the children of the village caught word of this little creature and they became very curious to play with it. So one day they devised to go to its house.

They called out in a native song,

"Little squirrel, come out and play 

Leave your chores and come out to say

We mean you no harm, want a friend just the same

Come dance in the sun, join in our game!"

To their surprise, Squirrel replied in song! "I'd love to play all day 

But Mbuya would surely scold and say

Where have you been, getting in trouble again."