His name was Fleming, and he was a poor Scottish farmer.
One day, while trying to make a living for his family, he heard a cry for help coming from a nearby bog. He dropped his tools and ran to the bog.
There, mired to his waist in black muck, was a terrified boy, screaming and struggling to free himself. Farmer Fleming saved the lad from what could have been a slow and terrifying death.
The next day, a fancy carriage pulled up to the Scotsman’s sparse surroundings. An elegantly dressed nobleman stepped out and introduced himself as the father of the boy Farmer Fleming had saved…
“I want to repay you,” said the nobleman. “You saved my son’s life.”
“No, I can’t accept payment for what I did,” the Scottish farmer replied, waving off the offer.
At that moment, the farmer’s own son came to the door of the family hovel. “Is that your son?” the nobleman asked.
“Yes,” the farmer replied proudly.
“I’ll make you a deal. Let me provide him with the level of education my own son will enjoy. If the lad is anything like his father, he’ll no doubt grow to be a man we both will be proud of.”
And that he did.
Farmer Fleming’s son attended the very best schools and in time, he graduated from St. Mary’s Hospital Medical School in London, and went on to become known throughout the world as the noted Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of Penicillin.
Years afterward, the same nobleman’s son who was saved from the bog was stricken with pneumonia.
What saved his life this time?
Penicillin.
The name of the nobleman?
Lord Randolph Churchill.
His son’s name?
Sir Winston Churchill.
… What goes around comes around.
Send this inspiring story to your friends to make a difference in their life… and you’ll see this kindness will come around in your life soon! 
Buy Ladan a Drink! 
March 18th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Thanks for the story, Ladan. It helps us to remember that everything we do for others will return to our lives in any forms.
March 19th, 2007 at 12:31 am
Ladan, what a great story. Thank you for posting it. The implications are incredibly profound. On personal, community, and global levels. How much future penicillin is the the west depriving itself of by ignoring the calls for help by the people in the bogs of poverty and starvation?
Cheers
Taura
http://www.melodywriters.com
March 19th, 2007 at 9:44 pm
Great story Ladan!
March 20th, 2007 at 3:48 am
Karma is like dejavu…it come around and around in circles and can be almost like a perpetual cosmic merry-go-round. Just when you think all has been forgotten and you have finally stepped off, it remembers every small detail, finds you, wherever you are, and serves you up a heaping platter of it all over again.
I do volunteer work with our local San Diego Police Dept, and I often chat one on one with our local officers at the nearby station. One younger officer, in particular, expressed to me how frustrated he was becoming trying to work with local youth and his success in trying keep them away from gang involvement. He could not seem to get parents to cooperate and the teachers seemed to turn a deaf ear to this problem too, in many cases. I told him to just keep on banging his message out there, because it only takes only one attentive ear from just one person to change one young LIFE FOREVER. You might not find that ear, today, tomorrow or even all this year, but you will find that ear and that youth will HEAR your message, one day, just as long as you don’t give up yourself and stop trying. Karma will reward your efforts and God is keeping track, be sure of that….all you need to do is keep putting it out there and HE can use your work to help someone, maybe even a close family member one day, who can ever know….Karma is magic and it is best left, not well understood.
March 20th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
“Karma is magic and it is best left, not well understood.”
Tom,
I couldn’t agree with you more on this. I’ve personally seen this magic in my life more than I can ever doubt it.
A kindness that you do today goes out there, takes a spin, and then comes back to you from somewhere that you least expected it.