A Man's Duty is to Try

By Troy Morash

On the grassy shore of the Danube River there was a little village of people who were friendly and kind. They liked to work harder than usual. However these were hard times and hard work was to no avail. Food was sparse. All the shops had closed and all the wild animals had run away. Miraculously the people held to their positive attitudes.

On one hot day three good friends, Costache, Vasile and Gheorghe had spent the entire day fishing. Between the three of them and several hours later they managed to catch one little fish. As they were returning home, a friend of theirs saw them and saw the fish.

'Costache, Vasile, Gheorghe, from where are you coming with a fish?! Why didn't you take me with you?' the man asked, greedily eyeing the fish. He was hungry and hadn't eaten in days.

'You can also fish,' said Vasile.

'How?'

'It's easy!' Gheorghe said. 'You take a small branch and tie a piece of string to it. Then you tie a worm to the string and you can catch fish.'

'And as we are friends,' Costache added, 'we'll tell you where you can get the worms, in the ground.'

'Which ground would that be?' the man asked his good and learned friends, for he was eager to start.

'Why the very ground you are standing on!'

After his friends left him, the man said to himself, 'Why can I not catch a fish now. It seems so easy!' He set to work straight away. He went into the bush and found a nice stick. Then he ransacked his house looking for a piece of string. He only had a spoon so finding a worm was the longest and hardest part. Then he tied the worm to the string and climbed up onto the roof of his house and threw his line with the sickly worm over the side. Not an hour had passed before someone saw the man sitting on top of his roof. 'What are you doing Ioane? The passerby asked.

'Can't you see that I am fishing.'

'But on the roof of your house?! There isn't even any water.'

Ioane thought about this for a moment and then replied, 'Hey, a man's duty is to try!'