There once lived in a stable a mother horse and her Little Pony. Yes, that was how the mother called him. Little Pony was growing day by day but had never left his mother’s side for a single moment.

One day, the mother said to Little Pony, “You are growing up. You got to do something for the family.”

Little Pony kicked up his hooves with great joy: “Tell me what to do, Mom. I’d love to do things for our family.”

“Great!” exclaimed the mare with great pleasure, “Take this sack of wheat to the mill and have it ground into flour. However, there’s….”

Without letting his mother finish, Little Pony dashed out of the stable, carrying the small sack of wheat his mother had prepared for him. He was galloping carefree in the direction of the mill when all of a sudden a little river stopped him, its playful water rushing down the stream.

Little Pony balked, wondering if he could cross over. “Only if Mother were close by,” Little Pony almost sobbed. He knew, however, mother was still waiting for the flour to make her bread back at home. A yellow buffalo grazing at the riverside caught his attention. He trotted towards him, bowed, and asked with subdued politeness: “Dear Uncle Buffalo! Could you please tell me if I can cross the river?”

“Well, honey, why not? The water is just as shallow as reaching my lower leg. I don’t see any problem your crossing it.”

The thankful Little Pony was lifting his front leg and about to put it down into the water when suddenly a faint but high-pitched scream burst into his ears: “Hold! Hold! Don’t cross! Don’t cross! You’ll get drowned if you do!”

Little Pony leaped back with an alarm, his heart thumping as loud as if he could hear it. “So the water's deep?” His gaping eyes spotted a little brownish squirrel on a tree nearby.

“Of course!” the squirrel was nodding frantically. “A friend from my neighboring tree lost her life only yesterday!”

Little Pony was at a loss what to do. He decided to go back home to his mother for an answer.

“Sweet heart, why are you back,” the mare asked, knowing that it was impossible for Little Pony to have finished the assignment in such a short time.

“I ... I ... I could not cross the river” Little Pony did not have the courage to look up into his mother’s loving but questioning eyes “be… because it was too deep!”

“Isn’t it shallow enough to cross?” mother asked with surprise.

“Uncle Buffalo told me so. But… but the little squirrel said that it was so deep that it drowned a friend of hers.”

“Well, Little Pony. What do you think? Is it deep or shallow?”

“Whoops. I did not give it a thought before returning home,” Little Pony regretted that he had not asked himself the same question at the riverside.

“Honey,” mother started her caring admonishment: “You need to think independently and critically. Don’t take what others say for granted. Can’t you see that Uncle Buffalo is even bigger than I am and the river is of course shallow for him....”

“Now I understand, Mom.” Little Pony could not wait to share his revelation. “The squirrel is so small that a puddle will be a great danger to her, isn’t it?”

Mother nodded with satisfaction, her loving and encouraging eyes squinting. Her son seemed to have grown up all but within a couple of hours.

With no delay, Little Pony galloped back to the river and was about to put his feet in the water, when the Brown Squirrel raised her faint but sharp voice again, “Don’t you want to live any more? Can’t you see the water is deep?”

“Thank you for your warning, dear friend. I got to give it a try myself.” So saying, Little Pony waded through the water. The river turned out to be neither as shallow as Uncle Buffalo told him nor was it as deep as the friendly Brown Squirrel had forewarned.