The Heavy Sack

There was once a poor boy named Joe who lived with his mother in a little cottage near the edge of a great field and, because they couldn't pay their rent, their wicked landlord kept threatening to turn them out of their house.
One day, however, as Joe was walking back home he met an old woman on the road who was struggling to carry a heavy sack upon her back.
"Why don't you let me carry that for you", he asked the old woman.
"Its very heavy", she said.
"Thats alright", he said, "I don't mind".
So the old woman gave him the sack to carry and it was very heavy indeed; much heavier than he had expected. Infact Joe sweated and strained to carry it but even so he never complained.
He didn't even complain when, every time he asked the old woman, "Is it far now to your house?", she would say, "Just a little father".
Eventually, though, Joe carried the sack so far that he carried it all the way to his own cottage.
"This is it", said the old woman.
"Here? But this is where I live?", he said to the old woman.
The moment he said this, however, the old woman seemed to disappear into thin air for, looking around, he couldn't see her anywhere.
So then, because he didn't want to leave it in the middle of the road, he took the heavy sack to show his mother, telling her all about the old woman.
"Oh, its very heavy", she said, trying to lift the sack, "I wonder what on Earth could be in it?".
Joe didn't want to go prying into other peoples things but his mother was curious and so she looked inside the sack.
And when she did she almost fainted with shock.
The reason you see, that the sack was so heavy was because it was filled with gold and jewels.
No one knows for certain who the woman was but some say she was a fairy who tests the kindness of strangers, so if you ever see an old woman trying to carry a heavy load, please do stop and help her. You never know, she just might be a fairy carrying a bag of gold.