The Donkey Loaded with Salt

One day Nasreddin Hodja loaded two sacks of salt onto his donkey and took it to the market. On the way there was a small stream. When the donkey reached the stream, it was so tired that it sank down into the water. However much the Hodja pulled, the donkey would not get up. After a while the donkey got up by itself. The Hodja saw that the sacks were empty and light. All the salt had dissolved in the water!

The Hodja was very annoyed, but the donkey was delighted. With its lighter back, it trotted happily all the way to the market.

A week later the Hodja loaded salt onto his donkey again. When it reached the stream, the donkey lay down in the water again, and the salt dissolved again. The donkey was lighter again. The Hodja realised that the donkey had learned the trick. "Just you wait, I'll teach you a lesson," he said.

The next week, instead of salt, the Hodja loaded two big sacks of wool onto the donkey. When it reached the stream, the donkey happily lay down in the water again, thinking, "Now I'll be lighter again." But wool doesn't dissolve like salt; on the contrary, it soaks up water! When the donkey tried to get up, the load on its back was twice as heavy. Groaning and staggering, the donkey got to its feet.

The Hodja stroked his donkey's head: "My donkey, the same trick doesn't work in every stream. A load you escaped once may feel twice as heavy the next time."

But the Hodja still felt sorry for his donkey. He spread the wool out in the sun by the stream and tied the donkey in the shade of a tree. They both rested until the wool was dry. Then he loaded the dry wool again, and they went to the market together.

This story tells us: whoever plays tricks to avoid work ends up making their own load heavier. And also: teaching someone a lesson and punishing them are not the same thing; the Hodja taught his donkey a lesson, but he was still kind to it.