The Landscapers of Chelm

[phkrause]

A man was on a journey and sat down on a bench in the famed city of Chelm to rest before continuing. As he drank his tea, he watched a couple of men working along the roadside. One man would dig a hole two or three feet deep and then move on. The other man came along behind and filled in the hole. While one was digging a new hole, the other was about 25 feet behind filling in the old hole. The men worked right past the man on the bench without even noticing him.

"Hold it, hold it," the man finally said to the workmen from Chelm. "Can you tell me what's going on here with this digging?"

"We are landscapers for the city of Chelm," said one man named Chaim Yankel.

"But one of you is digging a hole and the other fills it up. You're not accomplishing anything. Aren't you wasting the city's money?"

"You don't understand, mister," said Chaim Yankel leaning on his shovel and wiping his brow. "Normally there's three of us--me, Shmulik and Itzik. I dig the hole, Shmulik sticks in the tree and Itzik here puts the dirt back. But now just because Itzik's sick, me and Shmulik have to suffer?"