Three Half-Witted Sons and the Miserable Father

Once upon a time, there lived a man named Harold Finnigan in a quiet English village tucked between green hills and sleepy rivers. He was a widower, a cobbler by trade, with fingers worn smooth from decades of stitching soles and mending the weary feet of men. Harold was a man of soft-spoken dignity and patience, a soul both battered and brightened by life’s troubles. His misfortune, however, did not lie in his aching knees nor in his shrinking clientele, but rather in the curious folly of his three sons.

Edgar, Simon, and Bernard were, by all appearances, healthy young men—strong in the limbs, sharp in the eyes, and robust in appetite—but where nature had been generous in flesh, it had been woefully stingy in wit. These boys, if one may call men of twenty, twenty-two, and twenty-five boys, were specimens of a rare species: those who get everything wrong not from malice but from sheer lack of sense. It was as if wisdom had passed them by in the womb, whispering to the next cot, “Not here, not now.”

Edgar, the eldest, once decided to sell their old goat to buy a mirror, believing he could catch sunlight in the glass and store it for winter. When he returned home triumphant with the shattered remains of the mirror and no goat, Harold merely nodded. Simon, the second, dug holes in the garden one spring, convinced the earth needed more air. “How will vegetables breathe,” he asked, “if we keep suffocating them with soil?” And Bernard, the youngest and most theatrically daft, tried to teach their cow Latin, hoping to breed a more cultured calf.

These weren’t occasional blunders. Every action taken by the three brothers was a small disaster. They once tried to fix Harold’s roof by lighting a fire on top of it, thinking heat would seal the cracks. They attempted to wash the family’s winter blankets in the river during a storm, only to watch them float away like departing ships. At one point, they invested the entirety of their father’s modest savings into a man who promised to teach hens how to lay golden eggs.

Harold bore all this with a curious blend of misery and hope. He did not weep, nor rage. Instead, he sighed deeply, as one sighs after reading the same bad book a hundred times, not out of anger but out of weariness. He knew he had failed somewhere along the road—not in feeding or clothing them, but perhaps in showing them the shape of wisdom, in whispering to them the value of discernment, the gravity of thinking before leaping.

Yet, Harold was not a man to give up. “Even a crooked tree,” he often mused, “can still grow towards the light if given time and sun.” He began, therefore, a quiet campaign—not of punishment or scolding, for he knew those would bounce off his sons like pebbles off brass—but of demonstration.

One morning, he told his sons he had found treasure buried deep in the old orchard, but it was locked beneath the soil and could only be unearthed by careful digging, inch by inch. The boys, wide-eyed and breathless, dug for days. Edgar dug with his hands to feel the “energy of gold,” Simon sang to the ground to “wake the spirits of wealth,” and Bernard took to measuring the wind as though it were guiding him to secrets. But they dug. And in digging, they turned the soil, unearthed roots, pulled weeds, and found themselves accidentally growing a fine patch of earth. Weeks passed, and the land turned rich and dark, fit for planting.

Harold then brought seeds—not for treasure, but for potatoes and carrots, peas and onions. “The treasure was never gold,” he told them gently. “It was the soil, waiting for your hands to make it useful.” And something in their eyes flickered—perhaps not full understanding, but the first blush of it.

Then came the second lesson. He gave them each a task: Edgar was to fix the broken fence, Simon to clean the cottage roof of moss, and Bernard to manage the small stall in the village where Harold sold his shoes. The boys, for once, applied themselves seriously. They failed, of course—Edgar painted the fence with cooking oil, Simon slipped and rolled off the roof into the compost heap, and Bernard gave away three pairs of boots because “the customers looked honest.” But Harold didn’t scold. He instead sat with each of them, explaining, showing, working alongside.

“You mustn’t fear being a fool,” he said one evening as they sat beneath a setting sun. “We are all fools once. The danger lies not in being half-witted, but in staying so. Life offers lessons every day. The wise man listens.”

Slowly, remarkably, things began to change. Edgar started reading—the dictionary at first, then old books of philosophy Harold kept by his bedside. Simon took up woodworking, and though he ruined many planks, he learned the weight of precision. Bernard, with his natural charm, learned how to keep accounts, even teaching himself to give change correctly without guessing.

Years passed, and the cottage once again became a place of dignity. The garden thrived. The shoe stall earned more than it ever had. The roof stopped leaking. And most of all, Harold smiled more often, not because his burdens were gone, but because they were shared by sons who had grown from foolishness into understanding.

In the village, people would still whisper, “Ah, those were Harold’s imprudent lads,” and Harold would nod, amused. “Yes,” he’d say, “but even the moon was once a piece of stone drifting without purpose. Look at it now—lighting the night for everyone.”

He vocalized: "A man is not measured by the perfection of his children, but by the patience with which he guides them. And wisdom—true wisdom—is not a gift inherited, but a lamp lit slowly, passed from hand to hand, father to son, mistake to understanding."

*** Written by M. Abdullah. Dated: 20-07-2025 ***

Author's Note:

This story is derived from an inner self-experience about a father... who provides guidance, support, and protection to their children. A father should be a source of safety and security for his children, both physically and emotionally. He should guide his children, helping them navigate life's challenges and make good decisions. Being patient, especially during challenging times, is essential for a child's development. A good father, like Mr. Harold, is someone who is present, supportive, and actively involved in his children's lives, helping them grow into well-rounded, confident individuals.