It is another week, full of hope and new experiences, on My Woven Words, Mondays are for Motivation and we styled food for thought. We publish an inspiring post every Monday to keep you going despite the difficulties and seemingly impossible tasks that come your way and today it is about Fifty Cent Lesson on Persistence.
However, this week, we want you to know that persistence is the key. you might not yet be getting the result you desire despite your effort but none of your hard work will go unrewarded if you do not quit.
Shortly after Mr Darby received his degree from the “University of Hard Knocks,” and had decided to profit from his experience in the gold mining business, he had the good fortune to be present on an occasion that proved to him that “No” does not necessarily mean no.
One afternoon he was helping his uncle grind wheat in an old-fashioned mill. The uncle operated a large farm on which a number of coloured sharecrop farmers lived. Quietly, the door was opened, and a small coloured child, the daughter of a tenant, walked in and 23 24 took her place near the door.
The uncle looked up, saw the child, and barked at her roughly, “what do you want?”
Meekly, the child replied, “My mammy say send her fifty cents.”
“I’ll not do it,” the uncle retorted, “Now you run on home.”
“Yas sah,” the child replied. But she did not move.
The uncle went ahead with his work, so busily engaged that he did not pay enough attention to the child to observe that she did not leave. When he looked up and saw her still standing there, he yelled at her, “I told you to go on home! Now go, or I’ll take a switch to you.”
The little girl said “yas sah,” but she did not budge an inch.
The uncle dropped a sack of grain he was about to pour into the mill hopper, picked up a barrel stave, and started toward the child with an expression on his face that indicated trouble.
Darby held his breath. He was certain he was about to witness a murder. He knew his uncle had a fierce temper. He knew that coloured children were not supposed to defy white people in that part of the country.
When the uncle reached the spot where the child was standing, she quickly stepped forward one step, looked up into his eyes, and screamed at the top of her shrill voice, “MY MAMMY’S GOTTA HAVE THAT FIFTY CENTS!”
The uncle stopped, looked at her for a minute, then slowly laid the barrel stave on the floor, put his hand in his pocket, took out half a dollar (Fifty Cents), and gave it to her.
The child took the money and slowly backed toward the door, never taking her eyes off the man whom she had just conquered. After she had gone, the uncle sat down on a box and looked out the window into space for more than ten minutes. He was pondering, with awe, over the whipping he had just taken.
Mr Darby, too, was doing some thinking. That was the first time in all his experience that he had seen a coloured child deliberately master an adult white person. How did she do it? What happened to his uncle that caused him to lose his fierceness and become as docile as a lamb? What strange power did this child use that made her master over her superior?
Mr Darby pointed out: “every time a prospect tried to bow me out, without buying, I saw that child standing there in the old mill, her big eyes glaring in defiance, and I said to myself, ‘I’ve gotta make this sale. ‘ The better portion of all sales I have made were made after people had said ‘NO’.”
You can have anything you desire if your are persistent enough
REFERENCE
- Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
