The Servant and the Master

They say there once lived a gentleman who had many poultry houses filled with countless chickens, ducks, and geese. The gentleman hired a servant to take care of all the birds—to feed them, water them, and lock them up at night—while he himself would come every two or three days to count the birds. There was so much work that the poor servant hardly had time to catch his breath, let alone taste any chicken. Oh no! All of it went to the master. The servant thought and thought about this injustice, and one day he caught a goose, put it in a pot, and ate it, soothing his heart. When the master came to count his hundred geese, there were only ninety-nine.

"May (or whatever he called him), one goose is missing!"

"What are you talking about, master? They're all here."

"How can they all be here when there are only ninety-nine?"

"No, it's a full hundred," the servant insisted. The master counted again. Still, one goose was missing!

"May, may your eyes burst! I'll turn you into a goose!"

"Why are you picking on me, master? The full hundred are here." And so they argued for a long time, one saying, "No!" and the other, "Yes!" Finally, the master decided to prove his point. He ordered a hundred of his servants to come to the poultry yard and counted them.

"Do you see a hundred servants?"

"I do."

"If you say there are a hundred geese here, then each servant should have one goose, right?"

"May," the master ordered the servants, "each of you, grab one goose—but only one!"

The servants rushed at the geese, chasing them around, and soon they had caught them all. Ninety-nine servants stood with a goose under their arms, but one was left empty-handed.

"Now tell me, you cursed one, why is this one left without a goose?"

"Well, master, who's to blame if he was too slow and couldn't catch one for himself?"

More fairy tales

• The Devil and the Man
• The Cook and the Boyar
• The Shepherd's Sheep
• The Horse and the Bear
• You Got One Soul, and I Got Two