Harvesting the Dates

A farmer sent a servant to harvest dates. "The man's a fool, but surely he can harvest dates," thought the farmer.
As it happened, one of the date-palms had fallen down in a storm. The dates were on the ground, easy to harvest. Te servant then decided to knock down all the trees. "I'll raise them up afterwards," he thought.
But after harvesting the dates, he couldn't get any of the date-palms to stand up again, no matter how hard he tried.
The farmer was furious. "But that's what I deserve," he admitted, "for entrusting the work to a fool."

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Inspired by: The Ocean of Story by Somadeva, translated by C.H. Tawney: Volume 5.
Notes: This is Story 92.

(dates)