The Beginner Nightingale

One summer day, as Nasreddin Hodja was walking along the road, he saw a garden. In the garden there were apricot trees; the branches were full of bright yellow, sweet-smelling apricots. The Hodja's mouth watered. He looked around; there was nobody about. He jumped over the wall, climbed the tree and began eating the apricots.

Just then the gardener came. He looked up: a man in a turban in the tree. "Hey! Who are you, what are you doing up there?"

With his mouth full of apricots, the Hodja answered at once: "I am a nightingale."

"A nightingale?" said the gardener. "Then sing, and let us hear you."

The Hodja swallowed the apricot in his mouth, cleared his throat and, with all his might: "Gaaak! Grrrk! Vaaak!"

The gardener doubled over laughing: "Hodja, what kind of nightingale song is that?"

The Hodja climbed down from the tree and shook out his robe: "A beginner nightingale sings only this well."

Still laughing, the gardener gave the Hodja a basket of apricots: "Here, Hodja, don't climb the tree again, come in by the gate." The Hodja took the basket and thanked him. That evening, as he ate apricots at home, his wife asked: "Where did you get these?" The Hodja said, "I sang like a nightingale, and they gave me apricots."

The lesson of this tale? Perhaps it is this: when you do something wrong, know how to laugh; people cannot stay angry at someone who laughs. But best of all is never to climb the tree, and to come in by the gate.