It happened a long time ago in the fall in one village.
The time has come to reap the harvest. And he was born gloriously: the rice was full, the ears were bent to the ground. The peasants went out into the field in the morning - and the rice was torn out of the ground, the field was trampled. They began to whirl: Who dared to spoil our harvest? Who decided to steal?
They harvested as much rice as they could during the day and went home. The next day they come and see that someone was walking across the field again.
Then the peasants decided to track down the thief and punish him severely. They began to take turns guarding. But the thief turned out to be more cunning - he stopped coming altogether.
The peasants rejoiced:
- We scared him great! Let him know: we won’t let him trample our rice with impunity!
They no longer guarded the field, but the thief was right there! He started stealing rice at night again. What a misfortune!
There lived one guy in that village. His name was Tara. He was kind and brave. No one could beat him in karate. Tara really wanted to help people, so he decided to track down the night thief.
Tara took a large stick and, as it got dark, went to the field. And the night is moonless, dark as if to poke out your eyes. Tara lay down in the grass, held his breath, and waited for the thief to appear. He lay there for a long time. Suddenly he hears someone sneaking. At first, he seemed to be walking with light steps, but as he approached, everything began to rumble, and a hot wind rose.
Tara lies in the grass, looks around, but sees nothing - there is darkness all around. Then he began to listen, and it seemed to him that the thief was cutting off ears of corn with a sickle. The daredevil jumped out from his hiding place and ran towards the sound of the sickle. He sees someone sitting at his very feet. Tara swung his stick and hit the thief with all his might.
The thief let out a pitiful groan, Tara collapsed at his feet and froze - that means he died.
Tara got scared and cried:
- What a problem! I didn’t want to kill a person, and I didn’t have that in my thoughts. I thought about how to help people and catch the thief.
Well, no matter how many tears you shed, you still can’t revive the thief. Tara sighed and went to his older brother for advice.
“Help me, brother,” Tara began to beg. “Confirm to people that I was not plotting a terrible murder.”
- Oh, you wretch! - his older brother shouted at him. “You’re getting yourself into a noose, and you’re dragging me along with you!” You should have come to me earlier for advice when you decided to kill a thief. What do you think, a thief is not a person? You didn't just kill a thief, but a man. That means you are a murderer!
Tara was completely confused.
“Don’t you feel sorry for me at all, big brother?” - asks. - Please, testify that everything happened by accident.
“Witness?” the older brother got angry. “Are you crazy?” Then everyone will think that I am at the same time with you. Get out of my house! I have nothing in common with the killer!
So the older brother kicked out the younger one. Tara is walking, shedding bitter tears. “There is no salvation for me now,” he thinks, “even my brother abandoned me. I don’t know where to go. Even drown in a swamp.”
He walked like this until he came to his friend's house. “Let me,” he thinks, “I’ll come in and say goodbye before I throw myself into the swamp.”
A friend opened the door and was surprised:
- What are you doing, Tara, walking at night? Or what happened?
Tara told him about everything - about how he wanted to help people, and about how he accidentally killed a thief. Only he kept silent about his older brother—it’s a shame.
“Yes...” the friend thought, “it’s a sad story... But don’t be sad, I won’t hurt you.” I’ll tell everyone that you didn’t want him to die. Well, if they don’t believe me, I’ll say that you and I were together on that field at night. It's not scary to die together.
“Thank you for your kind words,” said Tara. “But I don’t want your death.” I’ll answer for everything myself if I have to!
“Okay, don’t worry, we’ll wait and see,” his friend began to encourage him and suggested: “Let’s better go to the field and look at the thief, otherwise you don’t know who you killed.” And it’s no good for him to lie in the middle of a field - he needs to be buried.
“That’s true,” Tara agreed, “let’s go.”
And then it began to get light. Tara and a friend came to the field and saw something turning black among the ears of corn. We came closer and froze in place! It’s not a person lying in front of them, but a large swamp eel! The peasants had been hunting for him for a long time! That eel was the owner of the surrounding swamps and caused a lot of trouble to people.
- So much for the thief! - the friend laughed. - So you helped people twice: you saved the harvest from a thief, and in addition, you saved the village from an evil eel!
The friends picked up the big eel and took it to the village. What a joy! People came from all the surrounding villages to look at the eel.
- This is what he is, it turns out, the owner of the swamps! - they were surprised.
- How big!
- How scary!
- Thank you, Tara, for saving us all from death by hunger and from the evil eel.
The peasants fried a large eel and had a real feast. Tara sat at that feast at the head of the table, and next to him was a friend. Only the elder brother did not come to the holiday. He felt ashamed that he had not helped Tara in difficult times. The elder brother collected his belongings and left those places forever.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru