A
Glass of Milk
One
day, a poor boy who was selling goods from door to door to pay
his way through school, found he had only one thin dime left,
and he was hungry. He decided he would ask for a meal at the
next house. However, he lost his nerve when a lovely young woman
opened the door. Instead of a meal he asked for a drink of water.
She thought he looked hungry so brought him a large glass of
milk.
He
drank it slowly, and then asked, "How much do I owe you?"
"You
don't owe me anything," she replied. "Mother has taught
us never to accept pay for a kindness." He said, "Then
I thank you from my heart."
As
Howard Kelly left that house, he not only felt stronger physically,
but his faith in God and man was strong also. He had been ready
to give up and quit.
Years
later, that young woman became critically ill. The local doctors
were baffled. They finally sent her to the big city, where they
called in specialists to study her rare disease. Dr. Howard
Kelly was called in for the consultation. When he heard the
name of the town she came from, a strange light filled his eyes.
Immediately he rose and went down the hall of the hospital to
her room. Dressed in his doctor's gown he went in to see her.
He recognized her at once. He went back to the consultation
room, determined to do his best to save her life. From that
day he gave special attention to the case.
After
a long struggle, the battle was won. Dr. Kelly requested the
business office pass the final bill to him for approval. He
looked at it, then wrote something on the edge and the bill
was sent to her room. She feared to open it, for she was sure
it would take the rest of her life to pay for it all. Finally
she looked, and something caught her attention on the side of
the bill.
She read these words: "PAID IN FULL WITH ONE GLASS OF MILK."
(Signed) Dr. Howard Kelly.
Tears
of joy flooded her eyes as her happy heart prayed: "Thank
You, God, that Your love is shed abroad through human hearts
and hands."
Story confirmed by truthorfiction.com
as truth. As is often the case,
someone has fictionalized the details of this story and gotten
some of it wrong, but it is essentially a true event. Dr. Howard
Kelly was a distinguished physician who, in 1895, founded the
Johns Hopkins Division of Gynecologic Oncology at Johns Hopkins
University. According to Dr. Kelly's biographer, Audrey Davis,
the doctor was on a walking trip through Northern Pennsylvania
one spring day when we stopped by a farm house for a drink of
water. A little girl answered his knock at the door and instead
of water, brought him a glass of fresh milk. He visited with
her briefly, then went his way. Sometime after that, the little
girl came to him as a patient and needed surgery. After the
surgery, the bill was brought to her room and on it were the
words, "Paid in full with one glass of milk."
Andrew Harrison, the Processing Archivist and Fine Arts Coordinator
for the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions helped verify this
story.
