Goose Story

The Goose Story

There were two farmers.  They were each poor and had to feed their families very inexpensive and common food.  They could not afford meat or eggs.  They wore old clothes and ate very plain food.

During a storm, two geese wandered off from a wealthy farm far, far away.  They never found their way back to the wealthy farm.  After days of walking, the two geese came to the two poor farms and stopped for some water.  The two poor farmers were delighted, and each took a goose and put it in a pen on his farm.  Yeah!  At last, they owned something special.  They did not feel quite so poor now!

As each goose got comfortable in it’s new home, it started doing what is natural for geese to do—lay eggs!  Each laid an egg. In a few days each laid another egg, and another and so on.

The first poor farmer, the one not so wise, was excited.  “We have eggs to eat!” he exclaimed!   “We will not be as poor as before—now that we can eat eggs like the rich people.”  They waited eagerly for each new egg to come—so they could eat it!   The eggs tasted very good.  After a few years, they had eaten a lot of eggs.

But one day the goose wandered off in a storm and they never saw it again.  They really missed the eggs.  But their one goose was gone so they had no more eggs to eat.

The second poor farmer, the more wise one, wanted to eat the eggs his goose laid.  But he thought, “If I wait, if I don’t eat these eggs now, I can let them hatch, and someday in the future I will have many geese, and many eggs.”   He liked that idea very much!  “Don’t eat the eggs, let them hatch!”  That became his motto and he said it over and over to himself.  It became a promise to himself.  “I won’t eat the eggs, I will let them hatch.”

He kept his promise to himself.  After a few years, he had almost three dozen geese on his farm!  He had sold several for money.  Eventually he allowed himself and his family to eat half of the eggs,  hatch the rest, and keep some to increase the flock, and sell the rest for money.

He was now living a comfortable life.  He was eating eggs three days a week, and he had a large flock of geese.  He was also making a good living selling the geese he did not have room for on his farm.  He was known as a wise man.  And he was known as a wealthy man.

The first farmer, who was still poor, often walked past the farm of the second farmer, and saw how wealthy his neighbor had become.  The first farmer would say to himself, “If I ever am lucky enough to get another goose, I won’t eat the eggs, I will let them hatch!”



[original author unknown; this version of the story written by Dr. Jerry Epps, Marietta, Georgia, USA, July, 2013]