A cow was grazing in a foliage one day. She had traveled a long way looking for food as the area where she was from had dried out. Without grass and water, she would starve to death. After walking for miles, the greenest land met her eyes. It was not only green but had all kinds of grass and plants, some of which she had never seen. The plants were delicious as well. She mooed happily as she munched through the succulent stems and dewy leaves of the Buffelgrass, the Finger grass, the Klein grass, the Napier grass, and some unknown exotic herbs.

One special plant especially caught her eye. It was the pumpkin with her crawling stems spreading her leaves to a vast area of land. The pumpkin had also produced a lot of gourds which were growing out of branched areas of her stem. The cow’s excitement increased. She had never tasted a plant like this before. What does it taste like? She wondered. She opened her mouth ready to take a big bite on pumpkin leaves before a begging voice stopped her mid open jaw.

“Please don’t eat me?”

“And why not?” The cow was not having any of this.

“I spread my leaves over this ground to cover the soil from drying. If you uproot me and eat me up the soil will dry and the other plants won’t be able to grow.” The pumpkin quickly intervened for herself.

The cow thought about what the pumpkin had said and thought it made sense.

“Alright. As long as the other plants are still growing, I will spare your life for now. But I can’t make any promises when everything is dry and you are all that is left.”

So, the cow continued grazing every day. She cut and ate every plant but was careful to avoid the pumpkin and her fruits.

Several months passed and the land’s foliage began to whither. Only the part where the pumpkin grew was green while the rest of the area was hard with soil and tiny spots of vegetation. Pumpkin began to panic, knowing that now the cow will have to eat her because the area had run out of plants. However, Cow had become fond of Pumpkin’s company that she dared not keep her promise. In fact, she would walk a further distance to look for fresh grass and then come back to rest in the area where Pumpkin grew.

One evening, the cow had returned after eating her fill in a far away foliage. She was so full that she laid down to rest while chewing her curd.  Her belly was so full and milk started collecting in her udder.

Four hunters walked by and saw the cow’s swollen udder. They had come from a dry part of the land and were looking for water, or any drink be it milk or honey. They had so much meat back at home that they didn’t bother to hunt the cow for meat. However, they really needed the milk as they were dehydrated and their people back home needed some drink too. One of them pressed the udder and some milk sprayed out. Quickly, he got his hunter’s knife out of his pocket ready to cut off the cow’s udder.  The cow tried to escape but the other three hunters held her down. When the pumpkin saw what was about to happen to her friend, she threw one of her gourds their way. She had cut open the top neck of the gourd, poured off the seeds and crawled to the cow’s udder where she placed the gourd. She did the same with three other gourds. The hunters stood there perplexed. They watched as the milk from the cow’s udder dripped into the gourds. Each hunter held a gourd and pressed lightly on the udder to help the milk flow faster. Once all the four gourds were filled, the hunters were ready to leave pleased by their luck of getting the drink and containers in which to carry it.

“It will be a shame to live this cow here in the dry open field.” One of them said.

So they decided to take the cow along back to their village. They also took cut some more gourds from the pumpkin and carried her seeds with them. In the village, they planted the seeds which grew into a dense pumpkin foliage. They would cut some few leaves to use as vegetables. When going to look for water, they would carry the gourds. They also provided the cow with a lot of vegetation so she could provide them with milk. The cow no longer had to wander long distances to look for grass and herbs. Every day she saw Pumpkin’s children crawling by the fence, she felt glad that she didn’t uproot and eat their mother back then.