‘My children, I am already going through. My road on this earth is over. Listen to the tail I will tell you before I close my eyes. Listen carefully because I want you to interpret it after this.’
The sons stared at their father. The old man looked at them one by one and then he began:
‘There was an oak growing in the forest. A huge tree. The acorns were falling like rain from its strong branches. Its roots sucked sap deep from the bowels of the earth. The storm was shaking it but could not break it. Once a woodcutter came in the forest. He measured the oak with eyes, got down to work and started to cut the oak with his ax. He crashed it down before the evening came. He cut its branches and the trunk he took to his carpenter’s shop. He cut it there to nice boards. In the autumn a cooper came in the carpenter’s shop. He put the boards in his cart and took them to his workshop. He made a big barrel of them there. Every autumn he poured young sparkling wine in the barrel and sold it to the gypsies for weddings, name days and feasts. It was going like this while the barrel was whole. But unfortunately one day one of the hoops broke and the staves parted. The wine poured out and the barrel warped. While the cooper remembered to put a new hoop the staves fell apart. The children took the hoops and started to roll them along the street. The hostess burnt the staves and the bottoms of the barrel… Tell me now what I want to tell you with this story, boys!
The five brothers started to think but nobody could guess what their father had in mind. Then the old father shook his head and said:
‘You are still young. That’s why you can not guess. I will interpret the story: the forest with the big trees is our community, our state. It is a strong forest. Its trees grow up. The barrel is our family, we are the staves, the hoops are the concord, and the wine is the joy and the happy life. As far as there is concord in our family, there will be happy life as well. A house without concord – let the fire burn it. Keep the hoops of the barrel, my children!’
The eldest one bowed, kissed his father’s right hand and replied:
‘Thank you father for the vise advice. We will not forget it until we are alive.’