What you sow you will reap

What you sow you will reap

A young boy was going from door to door selling small ornaments that he had

made in order to pay his school fees. He was very thirsty and he decided to

ask for something to drink at the next house. A young lady opened the door

and he asked for a glass of water. She felt so sorry for him and decided that a

big glass of milk would be much better. After finishing the milk, he asked her

if he could pay for it. The young lady would not accept any payment for her

act of kindness. As he left the house, the boy, Howard Kelly, felt much better,

not just because of the milk, but because the young lady’s kindness made him

more determined not to give up, but to continue to work hard.

Many years later, that same lady became seriously ill with a sickness that the

local doctors could not identify and treat. So they sent her to a hospital in the

big city. A Dr. Howard Kelly was called in to see this very unusual case. When

he entered the hospital ward, he recognized the lady immediately. He decided

to do everything in his power to cure her. After many months, he won the

battle and she was cured.

Dr. Kelly knew when the lady was to be discharged and so, on that morning,

he went to the hospital accounts department and asked for her account. He

glanced at it, took a pen and wrote something on it. Meanwhile, the lady was

nervously packing away her things, getting ready to leave the hospital. She was so afraid to see her hospital account because she knew it would be for a great deal of money. Sure enough, the amount owing was huge. Then she noticed something right at the bottom. The final amount had been crossed out and Dr.Kelly had written next to the amount: “Paid in full with one glass of milk.”

Note

This is a much loved tale which at it's heart is a true story, but has been so greatly exaggerated and distorted in numerous ways in order to tell the story of a doctor who wouldn't accept a fee for his services from a young woman who once gave him a glass of milk.
Dr Howard Kelly (1858 -1943) was a distinguished and renowned physician who was one of the four founding doctors of John Hopkins, the first medical research university in the U.S.