One man had three sons. The eldest sons were married, and the youngest Ivan was single. The time has come to marry my youngest son. For him, his father chose the most beautiful girl in the village, Plaga.
- Do you like Plagi? - he asked his son.
“I like it, yes, they say I’m too lazy,” Ivan answered. “All he does is look in the mirror and admire himself.”
“It’s okay, son, we’ll teach her to work,” said the father. Ivan married the beautiful Plagi. They celebrated the wedding with honor.
Young people live for a day, a week, two weeks. Ivan works with his brothers, and the older daughters-in-law do not sit idle. Only the beautiful Plagi does nothing. He will go out into the garden, sit in the shade and sit.
One evening, when everyone returned from work and sat down to dinner, the father asks:
- Sons, what were you doing today?
“They uprooted the stumps,” they answer.
- What did you, daughters-in-law, do?
“We were weeding potatoes,” say the older daughters-in-law.
- What have you been up to, my dear? - the father-in-law asked the younger daughter-in-law.
— I was sitting in the garden under the apple tree.
The father poured a bowl of soup for his sons and eldest daughters-in-law, and put in a piece of bread and meat. I poured a bowl of soup for my youngest daughter-in-law, put a spoon next to the bowl and that was it. The beautiful Plagi sipped the thin stew, and that was the end of her dinner.
In the morning everyone went to work again, only Plagi remained at home. I stayed and thought: they don’t feed people who don’t work here, maybe I should do something too? I thought so and cleaned the house and washed the floor.
In the evening at the table the father asks again:
- What, sons, did you do today?
“They uprooted the stumps,” they answer.
- What were you doing? - the father asked his older daughters-in-law.
“Weed,” they answered.
- And you, Plagi, what were you doing? Sitting in the cold under the apple tree again?
“No, I cleaned the house, wiped the dust, washed the floor,” said Plagi.
This time, the father-in-law poured soup for his daughter-in-law and put in a piece of bread.
Plagi eats this piece and thinks: “It turns out that in this house they feed better than the one who works better. I’ll go and weed the potatoes tomorrow.”
So I did. The next morning I got up with my older daughters-in-law and weeded with them until the evening.
At dinner, the father-in-law asks again:
- What business, sons, were you doing today?
- The stumps were uprooted.
- And you, senior daughters-in-law?
- Weed.
- And you, our beauty? — it was Plaga’s turn.
“And I’m weeding today,” answered Plagi. And one of the older daughters-in-law added:
“She worked faster than us today; we could barely keep up with her.”
And this time the father put plenty of bread and meat in front of Plagi.
This is how the beautiful Plagi learned to work.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru