Alice

Good and Evil
Every morning a woman baked bread for all members of her family and an extra one for a hungry passerby. She would always place the extra bread on the windowsill for whosoever needed it.
She noticed a hunchback came and took away the extra bread every day. Instead of expressing gratitude, he muttered the following words as he went on his way: “The evil you do, remains with you. The good you do, comes back to you!”
This went on, day after day. The woman felt very irritated. “Not a word of gratitude,” she said to herself. “Every day this hunchback utters this jingle! What does he mean? ”
One day, exasperated, she decided to do away with him.
“I shall get rid of this hunchback,” she said.
And what did she do? She added poison to the bread which she prepared for him!
As she placed it on the windowsill, her hands trembled. “What am I doing?” she said. Immediately, she threw the bread into the fire, prepared another one and put it on the sill.
As usual, the hunchback came, picked up the bread and muttered the words: “The evil you do, remains with you. The good you do, comes back to you!”
The hunchback blissfully proceeded on his way and didn’t know the war raging in the mind of the woman.
Every day, when the woman placed the extra bread on the windowsill, she offered a prayer for her son who had gone to a distant place to seek his fortune. She hadn’t had any news of him for many months. So, she always prayed for his safe return.
That evening, there was a knock on the door. As she opened it, she was surprised to find her son standing in the doorway. He had grown thin and lean. His garments were tattered and torn. He was hungry, starved and weak.
Looking at his mother, he said, “Mom, it’s a miracle I’m here. While I was a mile away, I was so famished that I collapsed. I would have died but an old hunchback passed by. I begged him for a morsel of food, and he was kind enough to give me a whole bread. When he gave it to me, he said, “This is what I eat every day. Today, I will give it to you for your need is greater than mine!””
As the mother heard those words, her face turned pale. She leaned against the door for support. She remembered the poisoned bread that she had made that morning. Had she not burnt it in the fire, it would have been eaten by her own son and he would have lost his life!
It was then that she realized the significance of the words: “The evil you do, remains with you. The good you do, comes back to you!”
Moral of the story: Do good and don’t ever stop doing good even if it’s not appreciated at that time.