There was a woman who lived in a house surrounded by a beautiful farm. This woman was very stingy, and she had a poor servant who worked for her. She entrusted him with all the housework: preparing food, cleaning the house, and washing clothes.
She even made him supervise the farm and care for the many sheep she owned. Despite the many years of work, this stingy woman never increased his salary; instead, she would decrease it month after month in order to save money.
The Wool Merchant:
One morning, a wool merchant came to the farm wanting to buy good sheep wool. He met the stingy woman, and the price of the wool increased from its original value. The man agreed because the wool was good, and he told her that she needed to find a wool shearer in the city. So she went to find a skilled worker to shear the sheep’s wool for her.
The Wool Shearer Refuses the Task:
The wool shearer requested a modest sum of money to shear the wool, but the stingy woman refused to pay this wage to the wool shearer. He refused to work with her and left her. The woman returned to her house angry because she couldn’t find a worker to perform this difficult task for the small amount she wanted to pay.
The Stingy Woman Decides to Shear the Wool Herself:
The stingy woman thought everyone was trying to exploit her. When she returned to the house, the poor servant requested some money to go to the barber because his hair had grown long for several months and he didn’t have enough money to cut it.
A brilliant idea occurred to the woman, and she decided to bring the barber’s clipper and practice shearing wool by cutting the poor servant’s hair. Despite the wounds she caused to the poor servant’s head, she thought she was skilled at doing this with the sheep as well.
The Shearing Task:
The next morning, the woman prepared to shear the sheep’s wool. The servant came to help her and gathered all the sheep. She asked him to hold each sheep separately so she could shear the wool.
The servant tried to convince her that she wouldn’t be able to accomplish this difficult task, but she claimed she was skilled at doing it and that it would be an easy task that didn’t require skill or a specialized worker to do it.
The servant found no benefit in convincing her to bring a wool shearer instead of doing it herself, so he submitted to the situation and began holding one sheep after another while the stingy woman sheared their wool. The sheep cried out in pain due to the wounds caused by the barber’s clipper, and even a group of sheep tried to escape from the farm.
The Stingy Woman Feels Exhausted:
The task was extremely difficult; running after the sheep alone was enough to make the woman feel very tired. She couldn’t complete the shearing and returned to the house exhausted, unable to get out of bed.
The Servant Bandages the Sheep’s Wounds:
The servant looked at the crying sheep, whose bodies were covered with many wounds. The servant took cotton and began to bandage the wounds the woman had caused to each sheep. The next day, the wool merchant came at the appointed time to collect the sheep’s wool. When he learned that the wool wasn’t ready, he became angry with the woman and left. The woman lost the wool merchant because of her stinginess.
The Moral of the Story:
We should teach children generosity, and teach children that every task needs a specialist to perform it. We should not claim to do tasks that are not our specialty, as this will end up ruining them. We must also train well in doing things first to succeed in accomplishing the task well.