Hercules And The Wagoner

One day, a very long time ago, a farmer was driving his loaded wagon along a country road. It had been raining all day and the road was deep in squelchy, sticky mud. The farmer’s poor old horses were struggling with all their might to drag the wagon along. But suddenly they came to a complete standstill when one of the wagon’s wheels sank right down deep in a muddy, squelchy rut.

The farmer jumped down from his seat and just stood there looking miserable but didn’t make any effort to push or pull the wagon out of the rut. All he did was to yell and shout and mutter about his bad luck. Then he called out loud to Hercules to come and help him. And believe it or not, the old stories tell us that Hercules actually did appear right then.

They say that Hercules looked at the farmer, then he looked at the poor, tired horses and he looked at the wagon stuck in the mud and said: 

“Get to the back of your wagon and push with all your strength and tell your horses to pull with all their might. Do you really think that you can move your wagon by just looking at it and whining and moaning and shouting about it? I’m just not going to help you unless you make some effort to help yourself.”

The farmer nodded, gritted his teeth and got around the back of the wagon. Then he pushed and pushed as hard as he could, and called to the horses to pull and pull as hard as they could. And guess what? The wagon started to move along bit-by-bit until the wheel was out of the rut. Soon the horses were trotting happily and the wagon was moving beautifully along the country road. The farmer had a big smile on his face because he had learned a very good lesson.

And the moral of the story is if you never try you will never know what you can achieve.

The End