The Wooden Tools

One day a poor farmer had set out early to start the growing season. When he came to his shed he was shocked to find all his tools had been stolen. He was outraged because he didn’t have enough money to buy new tools. Making some iron tools would be nice but time consuming and hard work. He would have to go buy a tiny bit of iron and make a pickaxe. He would then find and iron vein, smelt the iron, form the tools and then fasten the tools to wooden handles. He thought, “I’ll never make the harvest in time!”

He then got an idea that was easy and fast. He would carve to tools out of wood. The farmer set out right away for wood. As soon as he got into the forest he came upon a problem. He couldn’t get all the good branches and wood because he had no axe so he had to do with rotten dry branches. Then came making the tools. The wood was brittle so he had many splinters as he made just one shovel and even worse the shovel broke on the first load of dirt.

It took many days to make tools that would last at least a day or two. He finally made an axe and went to chop some good wood down. He was horrified to find he couldn’t move the axe an inch for his hands were chewed up with thousands of splinters in them, some as big as two inches. He needed the wood so badly he decided to use his teeth to chew the wood down. Of course he got the branch down but with major consequences. His teeth were worn down to the gums so when he tried to eat he couldn’t. He thought, “Oh well who needs to eat when work is to be done!” The farmer skipped meals for a few days putting the time into making the nicer wood tools instead of putting it into making the food mash.

After a week of solid working he hadn’t eaten anything, but finally finished the tools. He was so ravenous he ate half his food and after got very sick. By this time the growing season was halfway over and most farms were just taking care of the crops the poor farmer was sick in his bed. When he got better he worked as hard as he could to get a harvest in time. Working in overdrive, the farmer broke all his tools just as the season ended and the first frost came. He checked what he got in his harvest. All that was in the harvest stockpile was a handful of grain.
The farmer wept for days for he knew he was going to starve in the coming winter. Very depressed the farmer went into the market and found a young beggar. The boy wasn’t more than seven and looked like he was starving with tattered clothes. The farmer gave the boy all he had including his land. The boy hugged the farmer and ran to his mother in glee. He had saved a few cents to buy a rope which he later used in a way no other person should.

The moral is: Procrastination pays off today, hard pays off eventually.