A day laborer works hard in the fields from sunrise to sundown, utilizing all daylight hours of the week. "Grunt..."
When he returns home after dark to his family, he is tired and weak, but he sits up with his wife and children to eat a well-deserved meal and discuss their day... "I'm home..."Dad! You're hooome!"
His eldest son isn't blind to his father's sun-battered skin and rough calloused hands...He tells his father all the things he learned at school.
Listening to his son's accounts of his studies, the father's smile is as bright as the rays of sunshine that scorched him all day long...
A brush seller approached the young scholars and found the separated bou curious..."Young boy, how old are you?"Seven"
The peddler repiled. "Seven! My, you must be a very good little boy to be studying so hard out in this heat!" "Tell me, do you enjoy school very much?"
The boy answered,"Yes, I like school, sir." The seller said, "Of course you do...well I'm sure you will grow up to be a fine young man one day!"To which the boy repiled, "Thank you, sir."
Then the seller asked, "Hmmm...but why aren't you sitting in the shade like all the other children? It's so hot today!"
And the boy answered, "If my father can work hard in the fields under the hot sun all day, then so too can I do my studies out of the cool shade. It's because of my father's hard work that I am able to have the books and school supplies, so I wish to endure the heat as he must for me."
The brush seller was astonished by the boy's thoughtfulness. He opened his bag with his best brushes to be sold and said to the boy, "So, take this set of brushes, they are my finest. Your compassion makes me very happy - use them well!"
"Whaaaat? Really??"