Page 79 - Moral Stories Vol 5

Once an old farmer had three sons. He had one piece of barren land. Before his death he wished that the sons would take up this land and put it to good use. It required a lot of hard work. It was full
of stones and wild bushes and would take more than a few year’s effort to make it fit for cultivation. The youngest son thought that he was young and had a lot of time but it was worthless to waste one year of effort on preparing the land and tilling it. Who knows, if the land was really fertile and if anything would grow on it. Thinking thus that his action might not yield anything, he simply did not do anything with it and asked his elder brother to take care of it. This person thought about the expected result of his action and got attached to inaction. The second son inspected the barren land and started to remove the wild weeds. After six months of labour, he removed the wild weeds but the land was still very hard and stony. He then thought that even if he removed the stones and made the land fit for cultivation, where would he get the water to cultivate the land? Thinking thus, he worked half heartedly for sometime but soon abandoned his idea of working further on the land leaving himself unhappy. This person also thought about the fruit of his labour and got demotivated by the daunting task. Finally it came to the eldest brother. He thought that his father has given this task and his younger brothers had given up for one reason or the other, but he must just do the task whatever might be the result. He kept working on the land everyday removing the hard and heavy stones. Then a day dawned when he had removed all the stones and the land was perfectly ready to be cultivated. He had however grown old by now and found that he was incapable to work anymore. He called his two younger brothers and told them it was up to them that they use the land and started farming on it. The fruits of his hard labour
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