fields to survive. None of my previous good neighbours were good enough to support me. All of them shunned my requests and pleas for help and turned their backs on me, calling me a ‘jailbird’.”
“For many months I lived like a wild, demented creature in a cave beyond the hills, and after I was unable to steal from the farmers' fields to survive any longer, I then started to steal their chickens and kill their sheep just to eat! I knew that it would only be a matter of time before I was caught in my acts of theft and returned to prison to serve a longer sentence.”
“It was when I was at my worse, when I was at my most demented and rejected, when all my former so-called friends and neighbours had turned against me; it was then that only one voice spoke out on my behalf and offered me kindness, understanding and unqualified love. And from who did this come, I hear you ask? It was from none other than the one person I had least right to expect it from; from the man I saw as my arch enemy, the one person I tried to ruin and make life miserable for; Farmer Hans!”
“It was the good farmer who listened to my demented ranting about my being bullied and unloved as a child and growing into a bully as an adult. It was he who first told me that until I learnt to love myself that I would never be able to express love towards others. Indeed, he was the very first person who said, ‘I love you, Gilbert’ and who offered to befriend me if I’d allow it. He was the first person to call me Gilbert with affection instead of call me ‘the fat farmer.’ It was he who persuaded all the other farmers to call me by my proper name, to support me so that I could re-equip my farm and to set me on the road to righteousness. He is the one who helped to reform my ways and redeem my character. He is my very best friend!”
“So you see, good people, had it not been for ‘second chances’, neither Sleezy the Fox nor me could stand before you today with heads held high. Thank God for ‘second chances’, that’s what I say.”
The curtain is raised for the final scene of the play. There is a field with 8 sheep grazing in the grass. Nearby is a chicken coop and out of it emerges Sleezy the Fox carrying a basket of eggs in his mouth. The fox places the eggs down safely and then goes and lies among the sheep, whose job it is now his to watch. Approaching Sleezy and the grazing sheep is Farmer Hans and his wife, Gretta.
Farmer Hans: (Farmer Hans pats Sleezy affectionately as he approaches the fox) “I’m so pleased, dear wife, that Sleezy was given a ‘second chance’, aren’t you? There were times, however, when I must confess that I thought I’d perhaps bitten off more than I could chew. But, time, patience, trust and belief made it all come out well in the end.”
Gretta: “It always has, husband dear, it always does! However, I’m sure that it involved a little more than that, important though all these things may be. You still needed to get the ‘wildness’ out of the fox before it could be taught to stop behaving wild. You still needed to know the way to provide it with a much different nature than nature originally intended.”
“No; you were the one to truly give the fox a ‘second chance’. It was you who provided the fox with the opportunity to step up to the mark and to talk the talk and walk the walk! Only someone with your wild imagination could have possibly envisaged a wild fox being trained, conditioned and transformed into a ‘sheep fox’ of gentle disposition.”
Farmer Hans: “And what a good sheep fox Sleezy has made, my dear. Just look at him handle those sheep with the slightest of body movements and the wink of an eye. He doesn’t even need a raised voice or an evil eye to get the flock to go where he guides them. He’s the best sheep fox in the whole wide world, I’d wager.”
Gretta: “He’s the only one, I’d bet!”
Farmer Hans: “Here’s too ‘second chances’ all; ‘second chances’!”
All the cast: (All the villagers appear back on stage and reply in chorus) “To ‘second chances’ everyone; ’second chances’.”
Farmer Hans, Gretta and all the cast sing a song that contains the repeated catch line of ‘Give us a second chance’ or ‘All I want for Christmas is a second chance.’ After the song is sung, the curtain comes down and the play is over.