Peter Willing was traveling along a hot and dusty road. It was uphill, too, and he was carrying a heavy burden. His feet were sore and his head ached, and altogether he was having a hard time of it.
He was wondering how he could ever get to his journey’s end, when he came across a poor old man, who was sitting by the roadside. This old man also had a burden to carry, and it was so very heavy that it had entirely worn him out.
“Now, what’s to be done?” said Peter Willing. “I have all I can carry, to be sure; but it will never do to leave this poor old man in such a plight.” So Peter Willing hoisted the old man’s burden on his back beside his own, and bade him come along with him.
Then it was that a strange thing happened. Not only did the stranger’s burden seem to add no weight, but the two together were not as heavy as the one before. Indeed, they both were as light as a feather.
While Peter was marveling over this, a little further up the hill he fell in with an old woman. She was crawling on, gasping for breath, and just about to give up through weariness.
“Now, what is to be done?” cried Peter. “I certainly have my hands full, and yet it would be a shame to leave this poor creature to faint by the way.” So Peter bent down and took the old woman by the arm to help her along the uphill road.
And then there happened another wonder, for the road, that had been so steep and hilly a moment before, now seemed to Peter Willing to have become perfectly level. Indeed, he even thought that it was slightly inclined downward, and he had hard work to persuade himself, by the position of the sun, that he was still in the right direction, and had not turned square around.
Well, so it went on. Peter stopped by the way to give to a third worn-out pilgrim, gasping by the hot roadside, a drink of a cooling liquid he carried, and as he went on, lo! the road no longer seemed hot to him, but cool and pleasant. At another time he stopped to bind up with soothing salve the foot of a little boy, who had cut it on a sharp piece of glass, and was crying bitterly; and, as Peter went on, his own feet, which had been sore and blistered, seemed as fresh and springy as when he had started. Some way he lost his own headache in binding up the aching temples of the poor old woman he was helping along. And, in short, Peter Willing came to his journey’s end as fine and fresh as might be, just because he had stopped all along the way to help other people.
You do not believe this story, children? Well, you have chances every day to find out whether it is true or not.