The Jones family have been going hiking for as long as they remember. The kids enjoy the peace and the feeling of relaxation nature brings, so they are frequent visitors of the forests surrounding them.
One day, they took a trip to a place over a hundred miles away from their city. The day was about to be a good one, but what they didn’t know was that a sudden discovery would make it the best they had in years.
Namely, as the family set the makeshift camp, young Justin decided to do some walking and look for mushrooms. All of a sudden, he spotted an abandoned vehicle in the middle of the forest. He started shouting “Mom! Dad!” but they couldn’t hear him.
As it was getting dark, Justin decided to enter the abandoned car and spend the night there, but at that moment he heard his father calling his name. Justin was relieved and happy to show his dad the old car.
Once they inspected the vehicle, they spotted a box inside with carved instructions on it. “If you find this box, please take it to the address below. – 5/7/1995. Vincent Davis.”
Curious to learn what was inside, they took a quick peek and the discovery stunned them. Inside the box there were war medals, some jewels, and gold bars.
The father and his son realized that the address carved on the box was not far from where they were at the moment.
First, they took the box out and took it to where the rest of the family was. After some time, Justin’s mom and dad asked him what he wanted to do with the box. Without hesitating even for a second, Justin said he wanted to take it to the person whose address was on it. “Good job. We’re proud of you for choosing the right thing to do,” his mom said.
The following day, Justin and his dad drove to the given address and knocked on the door. An elderly lady opened the door and asked if she could help them somehow. That is when the two showed her the box.
“Oh, dear…” she said, tears filling her eyes. “My husband found out that his grandfather had left him an inheritance about 25 years ago. His grandfather buried it in the forest so that my husband’s father wouldn’t steal it away from him,” she started to explain.
“My husband went to find it, but he never came back. We found his body near the highway, frozen. We tried searching for the car, but no one has ever found it in nearby forests. It’s a miracle you found it,” Linda said, wiping her tears. “The authorities said it’s likely his car broke down and he went to find help. He never found help and died on the way. He likely got lost.”
Looking at the old photos, the only thought that kept crossing the woman’s mind was: “Jack, I miss you so much.”
Once she was done going through the stuff, the woman said: “We never had any children, and I don’t have anything to spend on. I don’t need the gold, please keep it. I would just like his medals, the photographs, and the jewelry because this is my husband’s family heirloom.”
The Jones’ said they couldn’t possibly accept the gold, but as the lady insisted they eventually agreed.
However, once they said goodbye, Justin said to his dad, “Dad, Linda’s house looked very old, it almost looked abandoned. Can we fix it?”
The dad agreed and they both decided to spend the money on renovating Linda’s house and then give the rest to different charities.
On that day, Linda got herself a new family as the Jones’ started visiting her and inviting her over.
The moral of this story is that no matter how tempted we are, we should always do the right thing because the kindness we offer and the good deeds we do always go a long way.
