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That winter, all the plums froze All the peaches froze and all the cherries froze, and everything froze so there were no fruits in the spring   The villagers, the farmers, tried to revive the fruits; they put them in the warm and shallow part of the lake, but these fruits disintegrated and their skins floated away Others tried to leave the fruits in the sun, but these fruits dried up and rotted One woman took some fruits and slept with them in her bed, but she rolled over in the night and squished them Another woman who had a chicken farm put the fruits under the feathers of her hens, but the hens pecked the fruits in the night, and the fruits were ruined in this way No one could save the fruits, and the whole village was very distressed that this would be a summer without fruit   A pious man went into the temple one night to ask the Gods why they had killed the village’s crops, so that no fruits could grow, so that they were fated to be unhappy in this way, and the Gods said, ‘When you planted the fruits, you planted them without care, just throwing the seeds in the soil Last year you planted the seeds well, but this year you just threw them into the soil while you were thinking about other things, and we saw that you didn’t care, so we didn’t extend our care either, and did not shield them from the winter’s frost’   The pious man saw that this was true; everyone had been distracted by the festival; a prince and a princess from a neighbouring country had visited them in the planting season; everyone had been careless and in a hurry to see the royal procession; the planting had been slapdash   ‘Is there anything we can do now to save the fruits, or to prevent this from happening again?’   The Gods said, ‘If you look carefully, you will see that there is one