The Three Sillies

The Three Sillies

Once upon a time there lived a farmer, his wife, and his daughter. The daughter was kind, hardworking, and cheerful, and she had one strange habit: whenever she thought of some trouble that might happen, she would start to worry as if it had actually happened.

One evening, a young neighbor, with whom the girl had been friends for a long time, came to visit them. The family invited him to dinner, and the mother said to her daughter:

“Please run down to the cellar and fill a jug for us.”

She took the jug downstairs and opened the tap on a large barrel. Then she noticed a heavy wooden mallet overhead. Someone had left it on a ceiling beam and forgotten it.

The girl looked at the mallet and thought:

“What if I have a little son one day? What if he comes here for a drink? What if that mallet falls? Oh, dear!”

She imagined this event so vividly that she sat down on the step and cried.

Meanwhile, the jug had already filled up, but the tap remained open.

The mother waited and waited and finally went down to the cellar.

“Daughter, what happened?”

The girl pointed to the mallet and explained through her tears:

“Imagine, mother: one day I might have a son. He will come here, and the mallet will fall right next to him. What a disaster!”

The mother looked at the beam, at the mallet, at her daughter - and also began to worry.

“Really! How could we not have thought of this before?”

They sat down next to each other and began to grieve together.

Upstairs, the farmer wondered where everyone had gone and came down to find them.

“What is going on here?”

They told him about the grandson who might one day exist, the trip he might take to the cellar, and the mallet that might fall.

The farmer frowned.

“Yes, a serious matter,” he said, becoming as worried as though disaster were already at the door.

The young guest was left alone at the table. A few minutes passed. Then a few more.

“Something is wrong,” the young man decided, and went to find the family.

In the cellar he saw three sad people, an open tap, and a puddle by the barrel.

“First, let’s close the tap,” he said.

He turned the handle, picked up the full jug, and then listened to the whole story.

“So you’re crying because one day, maybe, a child will appear who might one day come down here, and the mallet that has been lying on the beam for many years might fall at that very moment?”

“Exactly!” all three answered together.

He moved a bench beneath the beam, lifted down the mallet, and put it safely in a corner.

“Here. Now the future problem is no longer a problem.”

The cellar became quiet.

The mother was the first to laugh. Then the farmer. Finally, the daughter wiped her tears.

“Perhaps we were a little too quick to worry,” the girl said.

“A little?” he asked with a smile. “I shall travel and see whether I can find three more people who are so good at making simple things difficult. When I do, I will return.”

The next morning he set off.

Before long, he found a little house with grass growing on its roof. A ladder leaned against the wall, and a woman was trying to coax a cow up it.

“Come on, Daisy,” she said. “The grass up there is so juicy! Just one more step!”

The cow looked at the ladder without much enthusiasm.

“Excuse me,” said the traveler. “Why would a cow climb up onto the roof?”

“Because the grass is there,” she replied, as though it were obvious. “It would be a shame to waste it.”

“What if we cut the grass and bring it down to the cow?”

The woman froze.

She looked at the roof.

Then at the scythe standing by the barn.

Then at the cow.

“Bring… down?”

“Exactly.”

The woman slapped her forehead.

“Daisy, did you hear? You won’t need to learn to climb a ladder today!”

The cow mooed contentedly.

He helped cut some grass, and soon Daisy was chewing contentedly beside the barn.

“One,” the boy thought and went on.

Towards evening he stopped near an inn. In a room nearby, a man was jumping from a bench directly into his open trousers that were hanging on the back of a chair.

He jumped once and missed.

He jumped again. One leg went in, but the other did not.

A third jump nearly knocked over the chair.

“Having trouble?” the traveler asked gently.

“Terrible trouble!” the man panted. “Every time I put on trousers, I spend half an hour jumping. How does everyone else do it so quickly?”

“Have you tried sitting down and putting in one leg, then the other?”

The man stopped jumping.

“One by one?”

“One by one.”

He sat on the bench. In went one leg, then the other. His trousers were on in seconds.

The man grabbed the traveler by the arms.

“My friend! You have given me back half an hour every morning!”

“Two,” the boy thought.

The next day the road led him to a village near a large pond. A whole group of people had gathered on the shore. Some held rakes, others held long sticks, and still others held nets.

“All together! A little farther left!” called the village headman.

“What are you trying to catch?” asked the traveler.

“The moon!” the villagers replied.

He looked into the pond, where the moon’s round reflection gleamed.

“It fell into the pond last night,” the headman explained. “We’ve been trying to pull it out ever since. As soon as we pull it closer, it crumbles in the waves.”

The traveler raised his head.

The real moon shone peacefully in the clear sky above them.

“Haven’t you tried looking up?”

Everyone raised their heads.

There was a long silence.

Then the little girl on the shore laughed.

The headman laughed after her.

And then the whole village laughed.

“So we spent half a day saving the reflection!” someone said.

“But the pond is now perfectly raked,” added another.

“Three,” thought the traveler.

Now he decided to return home.

When he returned to the familiar farmhouse, the farmer’s daughter met him at the gate.

“Well?” she asked. “Did you find three people who make simple things difficult?”

“I did. And I learned something more important too.”

“What exactly?”

“It can happen to anyone. One person takes a cow to the grass instead of bringing the grass down. Another jumps into trousers instead of putting them on. A whole village tries to catch the moon’s reflection. Someone else cries over trouble that hasn’t happened. We all need to stop sometimes and look at things another way.”

The girl nodded.

“I have thought about that since you took down the mallet. Now, when I worry about something far in the future, I ask myself: ‘Has it happened, or have I only imagined it?’”

“And does it help?”

“A lot.”

The farmer and his wife went out onto the porch. When they saw the traveler, they were delighted and invited him to dinner.

This time, when it was time to go down to the cellar, they all looked at each other for a moment - and laughed.

The mallet had been lying in a safe place for a long time.

In time, the two young people married. Their home had troubles like any other, but they learned not to add ten imaginary worries to the real ones.

And when one of them began to worry about what might happen in a year, in ten years, or perhaps never, the other would gently ask:

“Have we put our mallet back on the beam?”

Then they would smile, see what they could do right now, and find that the world felt a little simpler.

May this story leave a little light in your heart ✨