Treatment For A Giant
Snowhill was quite a big village. The villagers were a well to do lot. They were mostly farmers. Their fields yielded them excellent crops. The village was situated on the banks of a river. Not far from it was a range of hills and the natural scenery of the place was very good. So some outsiders came to spend their holidays at Snowhill. They occupied rooms in two inns very close to the river. Even some sick people came there to recover their health. Why not? There were two able physicians in the village. They were Victor and John. They had been trained by a legendary expert in medicine. Both had roaring practice. But, as days passed, more patients went to Victor, and less and less came to John. The reasons for this were simple. Victor treated his patients with great care. His aim was to cure the patients. But John's philosophy was quite different. His only aim was to exploit the patients. While Victor was happy with whatever patients could afford to pay him, John would forsake a patient if the patient could not pay according to his demand. Naturally, patients stopped coming to John. A time came when John could not earn enough to make two ends meet. One day he and his wife quarreled. John got angry and left for the town. He planned to do some business and become rich. But for that one needed enough money as capital. He failed to raise any loan. He was awfully frustrated.
As he was returning home, on a sudden impulse he entered the forest. "How does one feel if one decides to end his life?" he wondered. He made a noose and hung it from a branch. Suddenly he heard a thunderous voice, "What are you doing? Are you planning to kill yourself? Don't do such a thing. It is a grave sin. Tell me if you have any problems. I will try to help you!" John looked with surprise and saw a giant rushing towards him emerging from a cave. At first, John was frightened. But the giant's voice convinced him that it was a well-meaning giant. Suddenly a mischievous idea came to his mind. He had heard that giants always had a lot of wealth with them. The wealth of this giant must have been stored in its cave. If the giant died, he could own all his wealth. "Giant sir, the fact is, just now an auspicious star is presiding over the earth. If one hangs for a while, one can live for a thousand years more than what one's fortune provides," said John. Is that so? Although we giants live quite long, I would be happy to live a thousand years longer. Let me hang myself for a moment," said the giant. It pushed its head into the noose and jumped. The noose tightened around its neck and it howled in pain. Sure that it would die, John laughed. Luckily for the giant, the branch could not bear its weight and it came crashing down. The giant was injured but it understood that John had fooled it. Picking up a stone, the giant hurled it at John. John would have died had the stone struck him. But the stone missed him. He scampered away rolling over a thorny bush, bleeding. The giant shouted, "Henceforth I will kill any human being I see." He reported the matter to his wife who had grown very anxious on account of his absence.
A bright idea came to her. She said, "If you could put an end to the giant, I am confident of putting an end to Victor. That would oblige all the patients to come to you." She went to Victor's house and told his wife, "My sister, can you lend me a good container for a day?" "Why? Yours is a physician's house. Don't you have containers?" asked Victor's wife. "My sister," said John's wife lowering her voice, "I want a silver container. The fact is, my husband met a giant in the forest. The giant gave him some gold dust. I don't want to keep gold dust in any ordinary container. I will buy a silver container tomorrow." Victor's wife gave her a silver container but put a drop of gum inside it. The next day John's wife returned the container to her. She found that there was indeed some gold dust stuck to the gum. Needless to say, John's wife had guessed what she would do! Victor's wife compelled her husband to pay a visit to the giant. Victor entered the forest, reluctantly. Soon he saw the giant groaning in pain. The moment the giant's eyes fell on him, it looked for a stone.
But Victor shouted, "What ails you, giant? I am a physician. Let me examine you." For some reason the giant trusted him, Victor applied medicine to the giant's wounds and his bruised neck and led him into his cave. For seven days Victor visited him once a day and gave him medicines. On the seventh day, the giant felt that it had been completely cured. "Thanks, dear physician, here is your fee," said the giant and it gave him a sackful of gold. Meanwhile, John and his wife were feeling more and more surprised. They had assumed that the moment the giant would see another man, it would kill him. But the saw Victor walking into the forest every day, and coming out of it, hale and hearty! The day Victor returned with his reward, he called a meeting of the villagers and told them all about his good luck. However, he was kind enough not to tell them anything about John's cruelty towards the giant. In the meeting, he proposed to build a charitable hospital with the gold he had received and the people applauded him. After the meeting, Victor told John privately, "I have a duty towards you, for it is because of your ill-treatment of the giant that I got a chance to treat it. You can join my hospital as a physician. You cannot realize any fee from the patients, but you will be given a regular salary." John hung his head but agreed to the proposal.
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