Once upon a time there lived a poor firewood seller. All he did was wander around the steppe and riverine thickets all day long and collect brushwood, and in the evening he went to the market and sold it for three tenges. With this money the poor man bought bread. And this is how he managed to feed his wife and only son. The firewood seller got up when it was still dark and went to bed when it was already dark.
One day, as usual, a poor man brought a bundle of brushwood to the market. He received his three tenigs for it and, tying them in his belt scarf, went to the bakery to buy flat cakes.
On the way he met an old man.
“Hey, seller of firewood,” said the old man, “give me one tenga, and I will tell you one wise truth.”
The poor man wanted to hear the wise truth, and he thought: Well, I have three tengi. I’ll spend one tenga, but I’ll have two more left. At least I'll hear some smart advice.
He took the tenga out of his belt scarf and gave it to the elder.
- Well, tell me your wise advice!
- Leave today's anger for tomorrow.
The poor man got angry and attacked the old man:
“If I had known that you, old chatterbox, would only say such worthless things on the left, I would never have given you the tengu, give my tengu back now.”
There was a noise and people came running. While the poor man was complaining! and explained what happened, the elder got lost in the crowd.
The firewood seller didn't sleep all night, thinking, wow! the tenga earned with such hard work was wasted. In the morning he got up early, as always, tucked an ax into his belt, threw a rope over his shoulder and walked.
He walked and kept thinking about the missing tenga, and so he planned it! I am afraid that I didn’t notice how I ended up in completely unfamiliar places and got lost.
For a long time he wandered through the steppes and mountains and finally came to an amazing city. The sky over that city hung so low that it was enough to stretch out your hand and take a star and put it in your pocket, and this is not a star anymore, but a precious stone.
The firewood seller liked it so much that, forgetting his native place, his wife and his little son, he stayed to live in that magical city.
Fifteen years passed, and it still seemed to the firewood seller that he had just come to this city yesterday, he lived so well here.
One day he remembered his wife and son: What are they doing there? They feel bad without me. He put the ax in his belt, threw the rope over his shoulder and went home.
He returned home late in the evening, when it was completely dark, and looked through the door crack. He sees his wife sitting at the dastarkhan and treating some man to dinner. The seller of firewood looked closely and was immensely surprised: he himself was sitting at the dastarkhan and having dinner. What miracles!
The firewood seller looked and looked and suddenly felt unbearable hunger. And how could it be otherwise: he didn’t put anything in his mouth all day. The firewood seller got angry: What a disgrace! I’m sitting at the dastarkhan, eating all sorts of delicious dishes from the hands of my wife, but in fact I’m standing hungry and cold at the threshold of my own house. Something is not working out as it should. Otherwise, it's a werewolf.
He grabbed a sharp ax from his belt and was about to enter the room to hack the werewolf to death, but he remembered the words of the curly-haired old man: “Leave today’s anger for tomorrow.”
He walked away from the door and climbed onto the roof. He lay down near the smoke vent and began to listen to the conversation between his wife and the horseman.
First the horseman spoke:
- Tell me, mom, how old was I when my father left home?
- Son, you were three years old.
- Why did father leave us alone?
- Oh my son, don’t even remember. After all, fifteen difficult years have passed since then.
- But I don’t remember my father at all, what is he like?
-You look a lot like him. You are the spitting image of your father.
- Will such a happy day come when I see my father?
And the horseman, sitting at the dastarkhan, began to cry, and behind him his mother began to cry.
The firewood seller lay there and thought: Eh, I almost killed my own son. It's good that I met that old man. The saying Leave today's anger for tomorrow, for which I paid one tenga, brought me benefits worth a thousand gold.
He hurried to get off the roof and enter the house. His wife and son were delighted.
And so they all lived their years happily together.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru