I'm Selling Ladders

One summer's day, as Nasreddin Hodja walked past a garden, he saw ripe purple plums hanging over the wall. The plums looked so delicious that the Hodja could not resist. He went home and fetched his ladder, leaned it against the wall, climbed up, and then lowered the ladder down the other side, into the garden.

Just as he was reaching for the plum tree, the owner of the garden appeared with a hoe in his hand: "Hey! Who are you? What are you doing in my garden?"

The Hodja did not turn a hair: "Me? I'm selling ladders."

The garden owner was astonished: "Selling ladders? Here? Are ladders sold in my garden?"

The Hodja shrugged: "Why not? Ladders can be sold anywhere. In a garden, in the market, on top of a wall."

The garden owner laughed so hard at this answer that he dropped his hoe. When he had stopped laughing, he said to the Hodja: "Hodja, I won't buy your ladder, but I'll give you a basket of plums. Only, next time, come in through the gate and knock."

Sheepishly, the Hodja climbed down his ladder. The garden owner gave him a full basket of plums. As the Hodja took the basket, he said, "Neighbour, these plums looked sweet from the other side of the wall, but from your hands they're much sweeter."

From that day on, whenever the Hodja walked past that garden, he knocked at the gate, and he and the garden owner sat and chatted in the shade of the plum tree.

This story tells us: we must not reach for other people's things without permission. There is no shame in asking; something asked for at the door is both more honest and sweeter than something taken in secret.