A Stone in the Road
There is a story told of a king who lived long
ago in a country across the sea. He was a very wise king, and spared
no effort to teach his people good habits.
Often he did things which seemed to them strange and useless; but all
that he did, he did to teach his people to be industrious and careful."Nothing
good can come to a nation," he said, "whose people complain and expect
others to fix their problems for them. Good things from life come to
those who take matters
into their hands".One night, while
everyone else slept, he placed a large stone in the road that led past
the palace. Then he hid behind a hedge, and waited
to see what would happen. First came a farmer with his wagon heavily loaded
with grain, which he was taking to the mill to be ground. "Well,
whoever saw such carelessness?" he said
crossly, as he turned his team and drove around the stone."Why
don't these lazy people have that rock taken from the road?" And
so he went on complaining
of the uselessness of others, but not touching the stone himself. Soon
afterward, a young soldier came singing along the road. The long plume
of his cap waved
in the breeze, and a bright sword hung at his side. He was thinking
of the wonderful bravery he would show in the war. The
soldier did not see the stone, but
struck his foot against it and went sprawling in the dust. He rose to
his feet, shook the dust from his clothes, picked up his sword, and
stormed angrily about
the lazy people who had no more sense than to leave such a huge rock
in the road. Then he, too, walked away, not once thinking that he might
move it himself.
So the day passed. Everyone who came by complained and whined because
the stone lay in the road, but no one touched it.
At last, just at nightfall, the miller's daughter
came past. She was a hard-working girl, and was very tired, because
she had been busy since early morning at the mill.
But she said to herself,"It is almost dark. Somebody may
fall over this stone in the night, and perhaps he could be badly hurt.
I will move it out of the way."So she
tugged at the heavy stone. It was hard to move, but she pulled and pulled,
and pushed, and lifted until at last she moved it from its place. To
her surprise, she found
a box underneath. She lifted the box. It
was heavy, for it was filled with something. Upon it was written: “This box belongs to the one who moved the stone.”
She opened the lid, and found it was full of
gold! The miller's daughter went home with a happy heart.
When the farmer
and the soldier and all the others heard what
had happened, they gathered around the spot in the road where the stone
had been. They scratched at the dust with their feet, hoping to turn
up a piece of gold.
"My friends," said the
king, "We often find obstacles and burdens in our way. We
may complain out loud while we walk around them if we choose, or we
can lift
them and find out what they mean. Disappointment is usually the price
of laziness." Then the wise king mounted his horse and, with
a polite, "Good evening," rode away.
"I have always felt if it were not for the easily seen rapid prominent growth of my severely polycystic liver, I would be very ill today. Instead through attention to my huge polycystic liver [the big stone in the road], I am filled with an abundance of health. The health of my cystic kidneys easily followed."
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