Thankful Stories, The Shoes

I just love this story, this is one I tell my kids over and over.

“An older boy and his young companion were walking along a road which led through a field. They saw an old coat and a badly worn pair of men’s shoes by the roadside, and in the distance they saw the owner working in the field.

“The younger boy suggested that they hide the shoes, conceal themselves, and watch the perplexity on the owner’s face when he returned.

“The older boy … thought that would not be so good. He said the owner must be a very poor man. So, after talking the matter over, at his suggestion, they concluded to try another experiment. Instead of hiding the shoes, they would put a silver dollar in each one and … see what the owner did when he discovered the money. So they did that.

“Pretty soon the man returned from the field, put on his coat, slipped one foot into a shoe, felt something hard, took it out and found a silver dollar. Wonder and surprise [shone] upon his face. He looked at the dollar again and again, turned around and could see nobody, then proceeded to put on the other shoe; when to his great surprise he found another dollar. His feelings overcame him. … He knelt down and offered aloud a prayer of thanksgiving, in which he spoke of his wife being sick and helpless and his children without bread. … He fervently thanked the Lord for this bounty from unknown hands and evoked the blessing of heaven upon those who gave him this needed help.

“The boys remained [hidden] until he had gone.” They had been touched by his prayer and felt something warm within their hearts. As they left to walk down the road, one said to the other, “Don’t you have a good feeling?”

This story was taken from a talk by Gordon B. Hinckley

I have often wondered what this world would be like if more people put silver dollar in shoes rather than hiding them. 

Thankful Stories, The Old Fisherman

I blame my Grandmother for my love of simple storys and spiritual thoughts.  She had binders of stories she clipped from the newspaper, and little thoughts that she received at church... I love stories to, so I thought I would share a thankful story each Sunday this month... This is one of my favorites, it shows that gratitude usually goes both ways. 

The Old Fisherman    

Our house was directly across the street from the clinic entrance of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.  We lived downstairs and rented the upstairs rooms to out-patients at the clinic.

 

One summer evening as I was fixing supper, there was a knock at the door.  I opened it to see a truly awful looking man.  "Why, he's hardly taller than my eight-year-old," I thought as I stared at the stooped, shriveled body.  But the appalling thing was his face ... lopsided from swelling, red and raw.  Yet his voice was pleasant as he said, "Good evening. I've come to see if you've a room for just one night.  I came for a treatment this morning from the eastern shore, and there's no bus 'til morning."

 

He told me he'd been hunting for a room since noon but with no success.  No one seemed to have a room.  "I guess it's my face ... I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says with a few more treatments..."

 

For a moment I hesitated, but his next words convinced me.  "I could sleep in this rocking chair on the porch.  My bus leaves early in the morning."

 

 I told him we would find him a bed, but to rest on the porch.  I went inside and finished getting supper.  When we were ready, I asked the old man if he would join us.  "No thank you. I have plenty."  And he held up a brown paper bag.

When I had finished the dishes, I went out on the porch to talk with him for a few minutes.  It didn't take long time to see that this old man had an oversized heart crowded into that tiny body.  He told me he fished for a living to support his daughter, her five children, and her husband, who was hopelessly crippled from a back injury.

 

He didn't tell it by way of complaint.  In fact, every other sentence was preface with a thanks to God for a blessing.  He was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease, which was apparently a form of skin cancer.  He thanked God for giving him the strength to keep going.

 

 At bedtime, we put a camp cot in the children's room for him.  When I got up in the morning, the bed linens were neatly folded and the little man was out on the porch.  He refused breakfast.  But just before he left for his bus, haltingly, as if asking a great favor, he said, "Could I please come back and stay the next time I have a treatment?  I won't put you out a bit. I can sleep fine in a chair."

 He paused a moment and then added, "Your children made me feel at home.  Grownups are bothered by my face, but children don't seem to mind."

I told him he was welcome to come again.

 

 On his next trip he arrived a little after seven in the morning.  As a gift, he brought a big fish and a quart of the largest oysters I had ever seen.  He said he had shucked them that morning before he left so that they'd be nice and fresh.  I knew his bus left at 4:00 a.m. and I wondered what time he had to get up in order to do this for us.

 

During the years he came to stay overnight with us, there was never a time that he did not bring us fish or oysters or vegetables from his garden.  Other times we received packages in the mail, always by special delivery ... fish and oysters packed in a box with fresh young spinach or kale ... every leaf carefully washed.  Knowing that he must walk three miles to mail these, and knowing how little money he had made the gifts doubly precious.

 

When I received these little remembrances, I often thought of a comment our next-door neighbor made after he left that first morning.  "Did you keep that awful looking man last night?  I turned him away!  You can lose roomers by putting up such people!"

 

 Maybe we did lose roomers once or twice.  But oh! If only they could have known him, perhaps their illness' would have been easier to bear.  I know our family will always be grateful to have known him.  From him, we learned what it was to accept the bad without complaint and the good with gratitude to God.

 Recently I was visiting a friend who has a greenhouse.  As she showed me her flowers, we came to the most beautiful one of all ... a golden chrysanthemum, bursting with blooms.  But to my great surprise, it was growing in an old dented, rusty bucket.

 

I thought to myself, "If this were my plant, I'd put it in the loveliest container I had!"  My friend changed my mind.

 

"I ran short of pots," she explained," and knowing how beautiful this one would be, I thought it wouldn't mind starting out in this old pail.  It's just for a little while, until I can put it out in the garden."

 

 She must have wondered why I laughed so delightedly, but I was imagining such a scene in heaven.  "Here's an especially beautiful one," God might have said when he came to the soul of the sweet old fisherman.  "He won't mind starting in this small body."

 

 All this happened long ago ... and now, in God's garden, how tall this lovely soul must stand.
 
Mary Bartels Bray