Once upon a time in a land far away a young boy named Todd lived with his mother near a beautiful lake that teemed with speckled trout during the summer. They were very poor and relied on the fish for food together with a few chickens and one cow that lived with them in the small ramshackle hut that was their home. But despite the sparseness of their existence they were happy and content.
Winter came early that year and the lake froze over quicker than usual depriving mother and boy of the food from the lake on which they had come to rely. Then the cow became sick and wolves from the surrounding hills came at night and carried off the family's chickens.
"Come, Todd," said his mother, "let us chip a hole through the ice and you can catch us a fish for our dinner."
"But mother," said Todd, "I am afraid that if we make a hole in the ice then the rich children who play hockey on the ice may fall in and be killed."
"You are a very thoughtful boy," said his mother. "Then we must build a fence around the hole and you can write a sign to warn the children." And so they set to work and by nighttime the hole was made, the wooden fence built and the sign made. "I'll just put some of the red ribbon from your sewing box on the fence too mother, so that everyone can see it."
"First thing in the morning you must catch us a fish, Todd," said his mother as they lay down to sleep.
That night Travis, a rich boy from the other side of the lake, snuck out of his bedroom to practise his hockey on the lake. He skated around shooting his puck and chasing after it. Then he saw the fence that hadn't been there before and shot the puck at it. But unfortunately for Travis there was a small hole at the bottom of the fence and the puck slid through.
"No," thought Travis, "I can't lose my puck," and so he scrambled over the fence in search of it. He wasn't very good at reading so he ignored the sign that Todd had made. But before he knew it he tripped on a board and fell through the thin layer of ice where the hole had been made.
Travis' body was found by the police early the next day after his parents had reported him missing in the night.
The police went to see Todd and his mother and Todd told them why they had made the hole in the ice and about the fence and the sign. "We did everything we could to make it safe," said Todd.
The policeman was an unkind grump of a man. "The law," he shouted, "is the law. You had a legal duty to guard that hole in a manner that is adequate to prevent persons from falling in by accident and is adequate to warn them that the opening exists. You clearly failed!"
And so Todd and his mother were both taken off to jail to face charges of manslaughter under Section 263 of the Criminal Code.
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