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 "IT
ALL COMES BACK TO YOU"
The legend comes from the Azores; – and so the story
goes that a woman baked bread every day for a wealthy family.
As she did so, she made loaves for her own family and some
for church. Each day, as she took the church loaf out of the
oven, she prayed to God for the safe return of her oldest
son who had gone abroad to seek his fortune. Then she set
the church loaf on the window ledge where a crazy little hunchback
came each morning and took it. This little man irritated the
woman, for instead of showing gratitude for the bread, he
persistently spat out in his crackling voice, this odd saying:
"The evil you do stays with you, but the good you
do comes back to you".
After
months of listening to this irritating little man, the woman
was determined to put a stop to his behavior. She baked a
loaf of bread in which she put a lethal dose of poison, but
when she pulled the loaf from the oven, she began to shake
with fright at what she had done. She tossed the bread into
the fire and instead set out the loaf she had baked for her
own family.
Later
the hunch-back came by, picked up the loaf of bread and crackled
his proverbial saying. The woman watched, trembling at what
she had almost done! Evening came and there was a knock at
the door. The woman opened it and there before her stood her
son, tattered, penniless and hungry. "Mother,"
he said, "it's a miracle I am home! I was about a
mile from here when I began to faint from hunger. I hadn't
eaten for three days! A little hunch-back came by eating a
loaf of bread, and when I asked him for a crust, he gave me
the whole loaf! Mother, it was as if he gave me life again!"
His mother
became very pale and leaned against the door for support.
"Mother, why are you so pale?", he asked.
She only trembled as she remembered the saying: "The
evil you do stays with you, but the good you do comes back
to you."
All of
us have much to be thankful for in this season of the year!
In fact, we all should be thankful for every day that God
gives us life! Let us approach our various celebrations of
Thanksgiving with this truism in mind: "The evil
you do stays with you, but the good you do comes back to you!"
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