In which the silent forces of nature show themselves to be more powerful than the noisy ones.
The Wind and the Sun quarreled one day as to which of the two was the stronger. Each contended that he was mightier than the other, and stood ready to prove it in any way. They got so angry that people thought a storm was coming on and ran inside their houses. The Sun said:
“I am able to bring the summer, to ripen the grain and the fruit, and cover the earth with flowers. I can melt icebergs and clear whole fields of snow. I can drive away darkness and night and make day to come.”
“And I,” said the Wind, “can break down trees and move ships across the ocean, and bring the cold winter. I make icebergs when I am cold. I turn wind-mills, and move clouds across the sky. I can be a breeze or a hurricane. I can raise great clouds of dust so that people will hide from me.”
So they ended where they had begun; each thinking that he had the greater power. Quarrels never do go very far in settling anything. The wind still boasted of what he could do, and the sun still insisted he was the stronger.
Just then they saw a traveler coming and they agreed whichever should make the traveler take off his coat should be counted the stronger.
The Wind was the first to try, so the Sun went behind the clouds. The Wind blew with all his might; he blew so strong that he almost blew the traveler away. He blew ice into the traveler’s face, and snow down his back. But the harder the Wind blew and the more noise he made the more closely the traveler wrapped his coat about him. At last the Wind gave up in despair, for the traveler had buttoned his coat firmly and strapped it around his waist.
Then the Sun came and sent his warmest rays right down upon the traveler’s head. It grew hotter and hotter. There was no noise and no storm, just sunshine. The traveler threw open his coat, turned it back, and at last took it off altogether. He said:
“I am glad that the blustering wind has gone and the sunshine has come. It is so hot I must take off my coat.” And so it was that the Sun who had made so little noise in the world, yet proved himself to be very powerful.