Once upon a time there lived a pastor in Vestland, and he was incredibly rich: he had a large farmstead in the city and an estate in the valley. But for all his wealth, the pastor was so stingy that everyone was disgusted with him. He starved the workers, and they labored for him from morning to evening.
A pastor once hired a boy worker for Kosovo. The pastor’s mowing is far away, it’s impossible to see everything on your own, so he sent a new worker there.
“Go to the distant meadows,” says the pastor, “help the mowers and see that they are not idle!”
- OK! - the boy agreed.
He came to mow and saw that he could do without him there. The mowers themselves were not idle, but mowed regularly.
The next day the mowers wake up at dawn and get ready to go mow.
- Eh, no! — the boy tells them. “Quit your job, let’s get plenty of sleep.” There’s nothing for us to do in the meadow at first light.
- What are you talking about, guy! - say the mowers. - We can’t idle any longer. You know what a badass our pastor is! He will become enraged when he finds out that we are idle, and even worse, he will starve to death.
- Nothing! - says the boy. - I’ll shut his mouth quickly! Rely on me, and I will help you and myself, I will free you from bondage.
The mowers are happy; we slept until breakfast, and then spent the whole day chilling, singing and dancing, which is what people like so much.
In the evening the boy went to the city: he got a large wallet there and went back to the valley. And along the way he came across a wasp's nest.
He raised the nest and filled his wallet with wasps, and then went to the pastor’s estate.
He comes and says:
- Your workers are good! We cut some hay, there will be enough for a long time! Everyone worked for two!
- Well done! — the pastor was delighted.
And then the worker says to the pastor, as if by chance:
- I found a wallet just now! I’m walking across the bridge, I see a wallet lying around, and there’s not enough silver money in it - dalers and shillings. Well, of course, I picked up the wallet, it shouldn’t just lie there in vain!
The pastor's eyes lit up:
- My wallet! - he shouts.
“Well, yours is yours,” the worker seems to agree. - But look! If he is not yours in honor and conscience, let every shilling in your wallet turn into a wasp, and every blade of grass that we mowed today, let it rise again in its place in the meadow tomorrow morning.
The worker put the wallet on the table and left.
The greedy pastor grabbed his wallet, opened it, and it was swarming with wasps. It’s a known fact: don’t touch a wasp’s nest.
Before the pastor had time to cover his wallet, wasps flew out, hovering around the pastor, buzzing and stinging. Barely fought back!
“What a rogue!” the pastor thought about the worker. “What a cunning one!”
The pastor began to rack his brain: what to do next? The next morning the pastor was afraid to wake up the worker and sent a maid to the distant mowing. And he punishes her:
- Look to see if the mown grass has risen in the meadow.
She came to haymaking before dark. She waited until the sun rose. He looks, and following the sun, the grass in the meadow, which had fallen under the dew at night, rises. It’s as if it wasn’t mowed at all.
The girl ran as fast as she could back to the pastor and said:
“I came to the meadow, and the mown grass, all as it was, rose again!” And now the meadow stands as if a scythe had never walked across it.
That’s what the greedy pastor’s worker taught him a lesson.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru