There was once a poor woodcutter who toiled from early morning till late night. When at last he had laid by some money he said to his boy, “You are my only child, I will spend the money which I have earned with the sweat of my brow on your education; if you learn some honest trade you can support me in my old age, when my limbs have grown stiff and I am obliged to stay at home.” Then the boy went to a High School and learned diligently so that his masters praised him, and he remained there a long time. When he had worked through two classes, but was still not yet perfect in everything, the little pittance which the father had earned was all spent, and the boy was obliged to return home to him. “Ah,” said the father, sorrowfully, “I can give you no more, and in these hard times I cannot earn a farthing more than will suffice for our daily bread.”
“Dear father,” answered the son, “don’t trouble yourself about it, if it is God’s will, it will turn to my advantage I shall soon accustom myself to it.” When the father wanted to go into the forest to earn money by helping to pile and stack wood and also chop it, the son said, “I will go with you and help you.”