A Civic Duty Story

Story title: A Civic Duty
By: Indian Christian

      The story is told of a king who placed a heavy stone in the middle of the road and then hid and watched to see who would remove it. All kinds of people came up to it and worked their way around it. Some loudly blamed the king for not keeping the roads clean. But all of them dodged their duty of getting the stone out of the way.

     At last a poor peasant came along; he was carrying vegetables to town for sale. He came up to the stone, took a good long look at it, laid down his load of vegetables and with his shoulder rolled the stone into the gutter.
    When he came back, he found a purse full of money which had lain right under the stone. He opened it and found it full of gold pieces and a note from the king, which said that the money was for the one who would remove the stone.