Invisible Strength

There was a boy living with his mother who didn't know how to read or write. With the lack of formal schooling, the boy was despondent with his life, and by hanging around with wrong friends, he was sent to a reformatory for pick pocketing. The boy blamed his mother for not coming for a visit, and cursed the society for locking him up. One of the guards who watched this boy, gave him a young sparrow as a gift and said,

“I will release you if you raise this as a grown-up sparrow.”

The boy willingly consented having the greed of being released. However, raising the sparrow wasn't easier than he had thought of. He had to stop the sparrow annoying other people, had to make it warm so it wouldn't get cold, and had to feed it time after time.

But after the sparrow grew up a little, it kept on trying to fly away between the bars. When the boy tried to stop it and tied its leg with a string, the sparrow struggled to cut the string. It was no good even though the boy tried to soothe it down with food. Being exhausted, the boy finally said to the guard that he wanted to let it go.

“I want to continue and raise it, but it just wouldn't understand me.”

The guard smiled and said,

“That is your mother’s heart. She wants to keep you, who aren't still a grown-up,from getting away from her. But you just cut the string and fly away. That is why you are here.”

When the boy looked at him oddly, he said,

“Your mother still loves you. Much more than how you consider of the baby sparrow.Your mother must have been learning how to read and write. She personally wrote a petition of requesting us to release you.”

Source from: ‘Among the 108 warm hearted stories that opens the relationships’  / LS