This is Jaelah. I read this story in my Reading book in school and it really moved me! I shared it with my family during devotions and decided to put in on here too since you are all my family in Christ!
“I wish we weren’t so poor” grumbled Eddie, as he watched Mother stir a pot of potato soup on the stove. He glanced at the table that held nothing but a dish of soda crackers and a bowl of applesauce. “Poor!” repeated Mother. “What makes you think we are poor? Don’t you get enough to eat? Don’t you have enough clothes? Have you no bed to sleep in at night, or no warm place to go when it rains and snows? What more does a seven-year-old need? “Oh, of course I wasn’t thinking about such things. But Mother, you ought to see Gary Logan’s house, and the things he has to play with. And he has money in his pocket all the time. I never have any money for little things I need.” “ Money in your pocket! I can solve that problem for you.” Uncle Leon spoke up from the rocker by the window. Uncle Leon was Mother’s brother who had come to live with them after Father died. He was a scientist who did medical experiments of all kinds. “You have a couple things I could use in an experiment I want to try. I’ll give you good money for them.” What have I got?” exclaimed Eddie. “I’m too poor to have anything you could use.” No, you aren’t. I want to run an experiment to find out some things about eyes. If you let me have yours, I’ll give you a hundred dollars apiece for them.” “ For my eyes?” exclaimed Eddie in amazement . “ Yes, I’ll put you to sleep and have them out in a minute. You won’t feel a thing, and I’ll give you some beautiful glass eyes that are the same color as yours. It won’t change your looks at all,” Uncle Leon assured him, pulling a knife and bottle from his pocket. “Sell you my eyes!!” cried Eddie, looking wild at the very thought. “You couldn’t have them for a thousand dollars. Why, I’d be blind and never see anything again!” “Well how about two thousand then?” Uncle Leon took out his checkbook and a pen. “ That would be plenty of money in your pocket woudn’t it?” Eddie only backed away, shaking his head with a horrified look. “I guess I’ll have to give up my eye experiment then. I can’t afford to offer you any more than two thousand.” And Uncle Leon wrote something in a little notebook. “ However, I am working on something else.” Here Uncle Leon pulled another bottle form his pocket. “I’ve developed some ear drops that I think might make old people hear better . But I need some good ears to test them on. I’ll give you three hundred apiece if you let me put these drops in your ears. But you do need to know that if the drops don’t work they will make you deaf.” “Make me deaf!!” shouted Eddie. “Then I couldn’t hear Mother talking or singing. I couldn’t hear any music or the wind or-or- anything.” “That’s right,” admitted Uncle Leon, “ but you’d have six hundred dollars in your pocket for little things you need.” “I don’t care if I had six thousand or six million dollars. You can’t have my ears.” Uncle then offered large sums of money for Eddie’s right arm, his left leg, a hand, a foot. Eddie refused them all. And after each refusal Uncle Leon wrote something in his little notebook. “ Why Eddie,” he finally said. “I thought I heard you say you were poor. I heard you boo-hooing because you never have any money in your pocket. But just now you have refused ninety- three thousand dollars for what you could easily give me. If those things are worth more than ninety-three thousand dollars, how can you think you are poor?” The kind light in Uncle Leon’s eyes made Eddie drop his head in shame. “I’m sorry, Mother,” he said as he sat down to the steaming potato soup, “I just didn’t realize how rich we really are. You won’ t hear me complaining anymore.”