The Brave Labourer

The Brave Labourer

Once there lived a young man named Danylo. He was strong, hardworking, and kind, but there was one thing he lacked: experience.

One day Danylo hired himself out to work for a miller.

“Are you afraid of hard work?” the miller asked.

“No.”

“Can you get up early?”

“I can.”

“And do you know how to work a mill?”

Here Danylo should have honestly answered, “No. Please show me.” But he wanted so badly to seem capable that he only nodded.

“I do.”

On the very first day, the miller pointed to the sacks of grain and said:

“Add wheat to the hopper a little at a time. I’ll be right back.”

Danylo was left alone. He looked at the big wooden hopper, the millstones, and the sacks, then wondered:

“A little at a time. That’s clear. But where exactly should I put it?”

There was no one to ask.

“Never mind, I’ll figure it out,” the young man decided.

He took a handful of wheat and poured it straight onto the millstones. The wheel spun, the stones rumbled, and the grain flew in every direction.

“Oh no!”

Danylo tried to stop the wheel, but only raised a cloud of flour dust around himself. When the miller returned, Danylo’s hair was white, his nose was white, his shirt was white, and grain covered the floor.

The miller clutched his head.

“What have you done?”

“I added the wheat,” Danylo honestly replied. “Just… probably not in the right place.”

The miller was angry, but soon understood that the young man had not meant to spoil anything.

“You are hardworking,” he said, “but good intentions alone are not enough at a mill. You have to learn. For now, I cannot leave you alone by the millstones.”

And Danylo went to look for another job.

At first he felt ashamed. Then he thought:

“So what? One bad day is not a whole life. Next time I’ll ask someone to show me first, and only then say I know how to do it.”

He walked home along a forest road, thinking things over, and did not notice that he had turned onto the wrong path.

By evening, Danylo realized he was lost.

Trees rustled all around. He heard water splashing ahead, and beside a stream stood an old, abandoned mill.

“It has a roof and walls,” he said. “I won’t find a better place to sleep tonight.”

He went inside. The old wheel had not turned for a long time, cobwebs hung in the corners, and the wooden beams creaked in the wind.

Danylo lay down on a bundle of dry straw, but he could not fall asleep.

At midnight, a branch cracked outside.

Then another.

Someone was coming closer.

Danylo quickly hid inside a large wooden hopper left over from the old mill.

The door opened, and three men came in. They spoke in whispers, but Danylo heard enough to understand: they were thieves.

They lit a little lantern and emptied what they had brought onto the floor: purses, silver spoons, cloth, a jeweled buckle, and a few small bags of coins.

“Let’s divide the loot and hide it until morning,” one said.

“I’ll put my share under the old floor,” said another.

“And I’ll hide mine behind the wheel,” added the third.

The first looked around and knocked on the hopper where Danylo was hiding.

“And my things can stay right here.”

Danylo’s heart thumped so loudly he thought the whole mill could hear it.

“He’s going to look inside,” the young man thought.

There was nowhere to run. And three against one was not a good plan, either.

Suddenly, Danylo remembered hearing the captain of the guards at a fair once. The man had spoken so loudly and confidently that even the horses in the square had stopped stamping.

Danylo filled his lungs and boomed in a completely different voice from inside the hopper:

“Denys, block the back door! Khoma, get by the window! The rest of the guards, surround the mill! Don’t let anyone out!”

The thieves froze.

“The guards!” one whispered.

“We’re surrounded!” cried another.

“Run for it!” shouted the third.

They dropped everything and dashed out of the mill so quickly that one lost his hat, another his boot, and the third ran a long way with an empty sack on his shoulder without even noticing.

Danylo sat in the hopper and listened.

Silence.

A little more silence.

Only the stream was making noise.

He carefully peered out.

“Denys?” he quietly called to himself, and nearly laughed. “Khoma? Thanks for your help.”

Of course, there were no guards.

Danylo looked at the things the thieves had left behind. At first, he thought, “What luck!” But the very next moment, he saw a family’s initials on a silver spoon, a shopkeeper’s seal on the cloth, and an embroidered mark on one of the purses.

“No,” he said. “This is not my treasure. Someone is awake right now, worrying about these things.”

In the morning, Danylo found the road to the nearest village and went straight to the headman. The headman called the villagers together, and they soon discovered that the thieves had robbed several homes and a shop at the fair.

Everything was returned to its owners.

The people were so glad that each gave Danylo a small reward. The shopkeeper gave him a warm jacket, the owner of the silver spoons gave him good boots, and the headman helped him find work in a workshop.

“Just tell me one thing,” the headman asked. “How did you handle three thieves all by yourself?”

Danylo scratched his head.

“I wasn’t alone. Denys and Khoma were with me.”

The headman looked around.

“Where are they?”

“One was standing in my head by the door, and the other by the window.”

The headman was surprised at first, then laughed so hard that tears came to his eyes.

From then on, Danylo was never ashamed to say, “I don’t know how to do this yet. Please show me.” And he learned quickly.

When someone called him brave, he replied:

“Being brave doesn’t mean you’re never afraid. It means that even when you are afraid, your head keeps working.”

And then he would add:

“Especially when Denys and Khoma are in there with you.”

May this story leave a little light in your heart ✨