PREVIOUS KINDNESS REPAID!

One day, a poor boy, who was selling goods door to door to pay his way through school, found he had only one dime left. He was veryhungry. The boy decided he would ask for a meal at the next house. Knocking at the door of the next house he visited, however, he lost his nerve when a lovely young woman opened the door. Instead of a meal he asked for only for a drink of water. The woman at the door thought he looked very hungry, though, so she brought him a large glass of milk. He drank it slowly, and then asked, “How much do I owe you?” “You don’t owe me anything,” she replied.She then continued, “Mother has taught us never to accept pay for a kindness.” In response the boy said, “Then I thank you from my hear for your kindness.”

As Howard Kelly--that little biy--left that house he not only felt stronger physically, but his faith in God and mankind was strengthen, too. He had been ready to give up and quit.

Years later that young woman became critically ill. The local doctors were baffled. They finally sent her to the big city, where they called in specialists to study her rare disease. Dr. Howard Kelly was called in for the consultation. When he heard the name of the town she came from, a strange light filled his eyes. Immediately he rose and went down the hall of the hospital to her room. Dressed in his doctor’s gown he went in to see her. He recognized her at once. He went back to the consultation room determined to do his best to save her life. From that day he gave special attention to the case.

After a long struggle, the battle was won. Dr. Kelly requested the business office to pass the final bill to him for approval. He looked at it, then wrote something on the edge and the bill was sent to her room. She feared to open it, for she was sure it would take the rest of her life to pay for it all. Finally she looked, and something caught her attention on the side of the bill. She began to read the following words:

“Paid in full with one glass of milk”

Signed, Dr. Howard Kelly.

POST NOTE:

Dr. Howard Kelly (1858-1943) was a distinguished physician who was one of the four founding doctors of Johns Hopkins, the first medical research university in the U.S. and arguably one of the finest hospitals anywhere. In 1895 he established the department of Gynecology and Obstetrics at that school. Over the course of his career, he advanced the sciences of gynecology and surgery, both as a teacher and as a practitioner. It is not his sklls as a healer or accomplishments as a medical pioneer that concern us in this tale, though, but rather the account of the kindness repaid from previous years!

Live a life that purposefully engages in an attitude of "passing-it-on".

BACK