The Lazy Boy and the Ant

In a village there was a boy who was so lazy that he did not go to the field or chop wood; he ate what his mother gave him and then lay down. The villagers said, "Nothing will ever come of this boy."

One day his mother sent him up the mountain to gather herbs. The boy climbed the mountain, lay down under a tree and fell asleep. When he woke up it was getting dark, his stomach was empty, and so was his bag. At the foot of the tree he saw an ant. The ant was carrying a grain of wheat ten times its own size. It climbed a stone, fell, climbed again. The boy counted: it fell seven times. On the eighth try it got to the top of the stone.

"Leave it," the boy said to the ant, "it's too heavy, you're wasting your effort." The ant did not stop. The boy watched it, and watched it. Then he looked at himself: a great big boy, an empty bag, a hungry belly.

He stood up. He began gathering herbs. He filled the bag. He went down to the house. His mother was surprised: "What happened to you today?" The boy said, "I met an ant."

The next day he went to the field. The day after that he chopped wood. Years later he became the hardest-working man in the village. At the edge of his field there was an ant's nest; nobody ever stepped on it. His children would ask: "Why?" And he would tell them: "An ant raised me."