Two Brothers and One Umbrella
April 6, 2009
Even if you have little, you should share with your family.
If you do not share, your parents will be sad.
Once upon a time there were two brothers. One had an important job in the city, so he liked to wear the business hat he had bought on a visit to London. But since the hat, which the shop owner had called a derby, was brown, he liked to wear his red jacket with it to liven things up.
The other brother always wore French berets. His favorite was a purple one that went with his purple pants. Purple was his favorite color since he loved to drink French wine made from purple grapes. (He was very proud of being French and never ever, ever wanted to go to London.) Also, he worked in the local village so he didn’t need to look like a businessman.
Even though they dressed differently, the two brothers happily dwelled together in the house they had lived in since they were born. In fact, their parents also still lived in the house and the four enjoyed the arrangement immensely.
One morning it began to rain very hard. The brother who worked in the city suddenly realized he had forgotten to bring his umbrella home the day before. He needed to go to work but he didn’t want to get his brown derby and red jacket wet. The brother who worked in the village said he understood. After all, he would not want to get his purple beret and pants wet either.
The two brothers looked at each other. The parents looked at both their sons. The brothers looked at their parents. Then everyone turned together to look at the sole umbrella in the stand by the front door. And there they all stood, thinking.
The brother who worked in the village went into the kitchen and got a pair of scissors. He came back to the stand by the front door and said that his brother was more important to him than his umbrella. (Luckily, his umbrella was orange and not purple or things might have turned out very differently!)
He carefully cut the big, orange umbrella in half. Realizing what his brother was thinking, the brother who worked in the city took a cane that was also in the stand and with some string connected the cane to the half of the umbrella that had been cut off. The two brothers smiled at their new-styled umbrellas and agreed that if they both tipped their umbrellas just a little bit, both would manage to stay dry.
The parents beamed in approval at the selflessness (and cleverness) of their two sons. The brothers opened the door and walked down the front path side by side. At the sidewalk, they turned to wish each other a good day.
The brother in the brown derby and red jacked turned left to go to the train station to catch the 8:15 express to the city. The brother in the purple beret and pants turned right to walk down the street to the village. Their parents waved good bye and went back inside the house hand in hand.They smiled to each other with the knowledge that their lessons on sharing had paid off.
Moral
Sharing makes everyone happy.
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