The young man stopped one night at the humble
cottage of an old shepherd. He spent the night there and eventually
stayed several days with him.
He observed that the shepherd was spending
his evening hours by lamplight sorting nuts -- acorns, hazelnuts,
chestnuts and so on.
He would very carefully sort out these nuts and
compare them and cull out the bad ones. When he would finish, he'd put
them in a sort of knapsack.
The
next day as he led his sheep to graze, he would plant these nuts along
the way. He spent all his daylight hours walking for miles planting
these nuts in an area where there were no trees.
The young man wondered what
in the world this man was trying to do!
