In an Eastern land a boy once set out from his mother's home for a
distant city, where he was to begin life and earn his livelihood. Before
parting with him, his mother gave him forty gold dinars, which, for
safety, she sewed inside his waistcoat. Her last counsel to him was, to
seek and to follow always the truth. On his way he had to cross part of
a desert, infested by robbers. One of these saw him and came galloping
up "Boy, what money have you got?" he sternly demanded. The boy looked
up at him, and said, "I have forty gold dinars sewed up in my
waistcoat." The robber burst into a fit of laughter; he thought the boy
was joking. And, turning his horse, he galloped back to his troop.
By-and-by, another horseman rode up to the boy as he trudged on, and
made the same demand: "Boy, what have you got?" "Forty gold dinars,
sewed up in my waistcoat," said the boy again. This robber, too, burst
out laughing, and turned away, thinking the boy was making fun of him.
They had some talk in their band about the boy's strange reply. Their
leader turning it over in his mind, said he would like to see him, and,
leaving the troop, soon overtook the young traveler. He put the same
question as the others, and again the boy gave the same answer. The
captain leapt off his horse, and began to feel the boy's clothes, till
he counted--one, two, three--the forty gold dinars just as he had been
told. "What made you tell the truth, my boy?" he asked. "My God and my
mother, sir," was the reply. "Wait for me here a little," said the
captain, and galloped back to his troop. In a few minutes he returned,
but so changed that the boy hardly knew him. By removing a false beard
and other disguises, his appearance was quite altered. "Come with me, my
lad," he said; and he pointed to the spires of a distant city. "I cannot
go with you," said the boy; "you are a robber!" "I was," the man said,
"but all that is over now! I have given it up forever. I have a large
business in yonder city, and I wish you to come with me and share it."
And so they went on together; and when they arrived at the city the boy
entered his employment, and ultimately became very wealthy and
influential.
1970
My aim is not so much to say things that are new, as things that are
true.
1971