One day, there were three young sisters named Dafia, Peter, and Simona. The girls lived with their mother in a wooden house in the forest. Days passed, the girls grew up and became beautiful, and the house they lived in became small for them. Their mother gathered them and said to them, “The time has come for each of you to get your own house. I will give you the money your father left. You must be generous like your father was.”
Each girl took her share of the money and walked into the forest until they found a spacious and beautiful place suitable for building a house. Dafia said, “I will gather the firewood available in this place and build my house.” Her sister Simona said to her, “The wood is weak and won’t be suitable for building a strong house. You must buy bricks to build your house.”
But Dafia said to her sister that she would save money to buy beautiful furniture and clothes. So Peter and Dafia, with her help, gathered firewood and started building the house. After they finished, they asked Dafia to help them build their houses. But she refused and said she would go to buy furniture.
Peter had decided to build her house of wood and straw, and she would buy luxurious furniture for her house. Her sister Simona advised her to build a house of bricks, but Peter refused. So Peter and Simona began gathering wood for the house. When Dafia saw them, she laughed at them and said to them, “The wood isn’t suitable for building a house. It’s weak. The wind will destroy it quickly.” Then she left.
When Peter and Simona finished building Peter’s house, it was evening. Simona hadn’t bought the materials needed to build her house yet. She asked her sister Peter to host her in her house until she built her own house. But Peter said to her that her house was small and wouldn’t accommodate more than one person. She entered her house and closed the door in her sister’s face who had helped her. Simona was amazed because she had spent all day helping her mother clean the house, and now Peter closed her door in her face. She decided to wait for Dafia to spend the night in her house.
When Dafia returned after several hours, she wasn’t alone. But she had bought furniture and beautiful clothes and brought with her two older girls whom she had met in the market. She said to Simona, “Here are my friends whom I met in the market, and they will sleep with me tonight.” Dafia entered her house and closed the door. Simona was forced to spend the night in the open forest. But she was happy because in the morning she would go with her sisters to the market to buy the materials needed to build the house.
In the morning, Simona asked her sisters to help her build her house, but they were greedy and refused to help their youngest sister. Simona noticed that Dafia had started spending her money on the two girls she had met in the market. She advised her to preserve some of her money to buy food in the winter season. But Dafia refused to listen to her sister’s advice and said she would buy a cow for her friends, and when she spent all her money, she would milk her friend’s cow.
Simona started relying on herself after her sisters refused to help her. She went to the market and started buying bricks. One of the good farmers helped her transport the building materials to the forest. She spent all summer building her house until she was able to build a strong and secure house in the end.
Simona didn’t own furniture, but she was happy with the house, and she decided to invest the rest of her money in planting the garden that surrounded her house. Indeed, she started plowing the land and planting it, while Dafia and Peter were busy spending the rest of their money.
One winter evening, the cow Dafia had bought knocked down her wooden house, and it was completely destroyed. The two friends took the milk of the cow and fled the forest. Dafia was left without shelter or money. She found nothing before her except her sister Simona. She went to her and asked her to host her in her house. Simona immediately agreed.
One stormy night, Simona found someone knocking on her door. When she opened, she found her sister Peter. The wind had destroyed her house, and it had also destroyed the luxurious furniture she had bought. So Simona agreed to let her sister stay in her house until the winter ended.
All winter, Simona was working hard in her garden while Dafia and Peter refused to help her. Until winter ended and the two greedy sisters went to the market. When they returned, they found their clothes in a pile in front of Simona’s house. When they tried to enter, Simona refused. She said she had hosted them all winter, but when spring came, they must build their own houses and work to earn their food. Simona had sold the vegetables she had planted and gave them the money.
She told them that she had allowed them to stay with her in the winter season because this is what sisters do, and that they must spend the money wisely this time, otherwise they wouldn’t find any help after that. The two sisters realized that they had been wrong previously in all their spending and that their sister Simona had been right from the beginning, and indeed in buying bricks to build a new house.