The Bundle Of Sticks
Once upon a time there was a dad who had a family that was just three sons and not one single daughter. Those sons were really irritating and noisy, too.
They never stopped quarrelling and fighting and arguing amongst themselves and it gave the poor old dad a real headache.
Nothing he could say or do would make them stop so he thought and thought about some kind of lesson that he might be able to teach them.
One day the quarrelling and fighting and arguing had got to the point where all the noise gave the poor old dad his worst headache ever.
He had had enough. So, he got one of the sons to bring him a bundle of sticks. The dad pulled out a few little sticks and handed one to each of the sons. “Okay”, he said, “see if you can break it”.
“Easy”, said one son and snapped the twig in half.
“Piece of cake”, said the next son as he snapped his twig in half.
“Piece of twig, er, cake!” said the last son, as he snapped his twig in half.
Then the dad handed the bundle of twigs to each of his sons one after the other and told them to try to break it. They tried everything they could and bashed the bundle over their knees, tried to snap the bundle in half with all their strength and even jammed the bundle in the door and pulled and pulled but it still didn’t break.
"See, boys", said the dad, smiling "now you can see that if you all agree with each other and help each other, you will be strong as a family.
But if you are always fighting and arguing you won’t be any stronger than a single stick in that bundle."
And the moral of the story is that together we are stronger.
The End
