The Old Father

In the old days, it was like this: when a father grew old, his son would take him deep into the remote forest and leave him there...

One day, a son was taking his father to the forest. He felt sorry for his father—he loved him dearly—but what could he do? If he didn’t take him, people would mock him, saying he didn’t follow the old customs. They might even drive him out of the village...

He rode along, heavy-hearted, and his father said to him:

"Surely, my son, you won’t leave me, old and sick, alone in the forest?"

The son thought for a moment, wiped away a tear, and said:

"No, father, I won’t leave you. But for the sake of appearances, I must do this. Tonight, I’ll come back for you and keep you hidden in a dark storeroom until your last day, so no one will see you."

And so the son did just that.

When night fell, he brought his father back from the forest and hid him in a dark storeroom.

Then misfortune struck—hail destroyed all the grain, and there was nothing left to sow.

The son went to his father in the dark storeroom and lamented:

"What shall we do? If we don’t sow grain, we’ll have no bread next year."

His father replied:

"No, my son, as long as I live, we won’t go without bread. Listen to me. When you were still little, I built a threshing barn. That year, there was a bountiful harvest. So I covered the barn with unthreshed grain. Remove the roof, thresh it, and you’ll have seed to sow."

The son did as he was told. He removed the roof of the threshing barn, threshed the grain, and sowed it in the fall.

The neighbors were amazed: where had he gotten the grain? But the son kept silent, for he couldn’t admit that his old father had helped him.

Winter came. There was nothing to eat. Again, the son went to his father in the dark storeroom.

"So it is," he said, "we’ll starve to death..."

"No," said the father, "we won’t starve. Listen to what I tell you. Take a shovel and dig under the bench in the house. When I was young, I buried some money there for a rainy day. Life, my son, is not like crossing a field: anything can happen. That’s what I thought, and that’s what I did."

The son rejoiced, dug up his father’s money, and bought grain.

He fed his family and even lent some to his neighbors. They asked him:

"Tell us, brother, where are you getting this grain?"

The son confessed:

"My father," he said, "is feeding me."

"How can that be?" the neighbors wondered. "You took your father to the forest, like all good sons!"

"No," said the son, "I didn’t do as you do. I kept my father with me to live out his days. And so, when trouble came, my father helped me. Old people have more wisdom than the young."

From that day on, sons stopped taking their fathers to the forest and began to respect and care for them in their old age.

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The Old Father

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