There was once a gardener who was raising his son to be a good Catholic and have a holy fear of God. But when the gardener's boy went to school, the child met some companions who had been brought up very differently. Their conduct and words showed that they had already given up their childhood innocence and had grown in sin.
These evil companions soon got to know the gardener's son, and the young boy himself began to like them.
But his father, knowing the duty of a parent, was carefully watching what kind of children his son had chosen for his friends. It did not take long for the gardener to see that his son's companions were bad. The father now had the unpleasant and difficult task of removing his son from their sinful company, even though the young boy liked his new friends.
When the time came to speak with his son about it, the father chose a manner more convincing than words.
"Come with me, my child," the man said, one day. "I want to show you something."
As he spoke, they entered the garden together. Then the father, taking a basket, placed in it seven apples; six of these were the most beautiful he could find, but the seventh was rotten and full of worms.
"These are for you, my boy; you can do with them what you like."
The boy took the basket with great delight, but when he saw the rotten apple, he asked his father if he could throw it away.
"Why would you throw it away?" asked the gardener.
"Because it will spoil the others," the child replied.
"On the contrary," said the father, "don't you think that the six good ones will cure the rottenness of the bad one and make it healthy again? You shall see. Let us leave them all together in the basket for eight days."
The son was not convinced that this would happen. Nevertheless, the father took the basket of fruit and placed it safely under lock and key.
Three days later they went to look at it. Already three of the apples were spoiled.
"Did I not tell you," said the boy, "that if you left that rotten apple among them they would soon all be spoiled?" His father's only response, however, was to leave the fruit and re-lock the door.
Five days passed and they returned to the place and looked upon their experiment. All of the apples were rotten. At the sight of the spoiled fruit, the boy began to cry.
"Do not weep my child," his father said consolingly. "I will give you other apples. In doing what I have done I only wanted to give you a lesson." Disappointment yielded to curiosity. His tears dried as the young boy began to listen with interest to his clever father.
"Didn't I see you a few days ago," the wise man continued, "in the company of boys who were not good? These boys were, before God, rotten like the apple in the basket. By going with them, you also would soon become like them, for they would corrupt your innocent and beautiful soul. One bad boy is sufficient to ruin many good ones, as this one bad apple rotted the six others that were near it."