radley's Bill

Home is the place where first lessons are learned. And it is the place where much of what you do, you do for love. To make love the basic family value was not easy.
The following story was told by Rev.Dr.Hugh J.Kerr in his Children's Story-Sermons(1911)

There was once a boy named Bradley. When he was about eight years old, he fell into the habit of thinking of everything in terms of money. He wanted to know the price of everything he saw, and if it didn't cost a great deal, it did not seem to him to be worth anything at all.
One morning when Bradley came down to breakfast, he put a little piece of paper, neatly folded, on his mother's plate. His mother opened it, and she could hardly believe it, but this is what her son had written:
Mother owes Bradley:
For running errands25c.
For taking out the trash15c.
For sweeping the floor15c.
Extras10c.
Total that Mother owes Bradley65c.

His mother smiled when she read that, but she did not say anything.
When lunchtime came she put the bill on Bradley's plate along with 65 cents. Bradley's eyes lit up when he saw the money. He stuffed it into his pocket as fast as he could and started dreaming about what he would buy with his reward.
All at once he saw there was another piece of paper besides his plate, neatly folded, just like the first one. When he opened it up, he found it was a bill from his mother. It read:
Bradley owes Mother:
For being good to himnothing
For nursing him through his chicken poxnothing
For shirts and shoes and toysnothing
For his meals and his beautiful roomnothing
Total that Bradley owes Mothernothing

Bradley sat looking at this new bill, without saying a word. After a few minutes he got up, pulled the 65 cents out of his pocket, and placed them in his mother's hand.
And after that, he helped his mother for love.

".....This preacher's dream of unselfish, uncalculating families remained a dream so long as love was measured almost like money...." (page 370)

An Intimate History of Humanity
Theodore Zeldin (1994)