The Clever Boy

Hoofbeats clattered along a dusty country road, coming closer and closer. The rider was an envoy of the king, neatly dressed in his official robe and hat. He was traveling all over the land to find truly talented people to help the country. He had searched and searched without meeting anyone. At last he reined in his horse beside a rice field, where a father and his son were plowing.

The father, no longer young, was leading a water buffalo, and the furrows behind him ran perfectly straight. Beside him, a boy of about seven or eight was breaking big clods of earth into fine soil. The official watched the two of them for a while. Then he threw out a tricky question, meant only to test them.

He called out to the father, "You there, how many furrows does your buffalo plow in a day?"

Nobody could count how many furrows a buffalo plows in a day. The father stood there dumbfounded, with sweat beading on his forehead. He had no idea what a proper answer would be.

Just then, the boy put down his clod of earth and looked up. In a perfectly calm voice, he asked the official a question back. "May I ask, sir, how many steps does your horse take in a day? Tell me that, and my father will tell you how many furrows his buffalo plows."

The official sat frozen on his horse. He had never counted his horse's steps in his life. The question he had thought so puzzling had been turned right back on him, neat and impossible to argue with. He knew he had just met an unusual child. He galloped back to the capital and told the king the whole story from start to finish.

The king was delighted. Still, he wanted to test the matter properly, to see whether the boy was truly gifted or had simply been quick with words once. He sent three bull buffaloes down to the village, along with three baskets of sticky rice. With them came an order that made the hair stand up on the back of every neck. The village had to raise these bulls until they gave birth to nine calves. All the calves had to be delivered within one year, or the whole village would be punished.

Bulls cannot give birth, of course. The village was thrown into an uproar, like an ant nest broken open. Old and young crowded together to talk it over. Every face was long with worry, and no one could think of a way out.

Only the boy smiled, taking his time. He told his father to reassure the village, and to ask everyone for something very odd. They should slaughter two of the bulls and steam two of the baskets of sticky rice. Then the whole village should throw a cheerful feast. He asked to keep the last bull and the last basket of rice to pay for his and his father's trip to see the king. The villagers were only half convinced. But they had run out of options, so they went along with it.

When they reached the capital, the boy slipped all the way into the royal courtyard and burst out crying. The king had him brought in and asked why he was crying. Sobbing, the boy explained that his mother had died when he was small. He wanted a little brother or sister, but his father flatly refused to give birth to a baby for him. He begged the king to settle the matter.

The king laughed out loud. "A father is a man! How could a man ever give birth to a child?"

That was just what the boy had been waiting for. He looked up and asked, very politely and very sharply, "Then, Your Majesty, why must the three bulls of my village give birth to nine calves?"

The whole court fell silent for a beat. Then the king threw back his head and roared with laughter. He knew the child had caught him out on the nonsense in his own order. Far from being angry, he praised the boy for his quick wits. He also pardoned the whole village for the bulls that never gave birth.

Still, the king wanted to test him once more, to be completely sure. The next day he sent the boy a tiny sparrow, along with an order. The boy had to turn this one bird into three full feasts and present them to the king.

A sparrow is barely bigger than a finger. Making three feast trays out of one such bird seemed impossible.

The boy was not flustered at all. He found a sewing needle and had someone carry it in to the king. He asked the king to have a blacksmith forge this needle into a really sharp knife. That way, he would have a knife to prepare the sparrow for the feasts. Hearing that, the king had to laugh again. A tiny needle could never be forged into a knife, just as a tiny sparrow could never make three feasts. Once again the boy had won, and made it look easy. This time the king was fully convinced. His country truly had a child of uncommon wit and talent.

Some time later, an envoy from a foreign land came to visit. He wanted to find out whether the country had any talented people, so he set a fiendishly hard riddle. He brought a spiral shell whose inside twisted round and round, hollow all the way through from one end to the other. Then he made his challenge. Only someone who could pass a fine thread through that coiled passage was truly clever.

The whole court gathered round and fumbled with it. Someone coated the thread with wax to stiffen it and pushed it into one end, but it jammed at the very first bend. The high officials scratched their heads and tore at their hair. Not one of them could get the thread through the winding shell. In the end, the king sent people all the way back to the village to find the boy.

When the messenger arrived, the boy was playing behind his house. Hearing the question, he hardly needed to think. He just laughed and sang out a few lines, as light as a children's game: catch a big ant and tie the thread around its waist. Seal one end of the shell tight. At the other end, smear a little fat to give it a tempting smell. The ant would smell the fat and follow the passage inside the shell toward it, pulling the thread through behind it.

People did exactly as the boy said. The tiny ant crawled busily round and round inside the shell. A little while later it came out at the other end, drawing the thread all the way through the coiled shell. The foreign envoy stared, wide-eyed with admiration. He had never expected anyone in this land to solve his riddle, let alone a farmer's young son.

The king was overjoyed. He made the boy Trạng nguyên, a title that belonged to the top graduate of the royal examinations. He also had a mansion built close to the palace. That way, whenever he needed to, he could call the boy in to ask his advice on matters of state.

Vietnamese people have told this story for many generations. When it ends, the grown-ups often look at the children and smile. The boy in the tale had no magic at all. He simply dared to look straight at the nonsense that grown-ups would rather not see, and then asked one honest question back. A tiny ant, after all, could still pull a thread all the way through a twisting shell.