Chicken Soup for the Soul 20th Anniversary Edition by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Amy Newmark, Heidi Krupp Read Free Book Online Page B

ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean.
    But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.
    ~Mother Teresa
    A friend of ours was walking down a deserted Mexican beach at sunset. As he walked along, he began to see another man in the distance. As he grew nearer, he noticed that the man kept leaning down, picking something up and throwing it out into the water. Time and again he kept hurling things out into the ocean.
    As our friend approached even closer, he noticed that the man was picking up starfish that had been washed up on the beach and, one at a time, he was throwing them back into the water.
    Our friend was puzzled. He approached the man and said, “Good evening, friend. I was wondering what you are doing.”
    “I’m throwing these starfish back into the ocean. You see, it’s low tide right now and all of these starfish have been washed up onto the shore. If I don’t throw them back into the sea, they’ll die up here from lack of oxygen.”
    “I understand,” my friend replied, “but there must be thousands of starfish on this beach. You can’t possibly get to all of them. There are simply too many. And don’t you realize this is probably happening on hundreds of beaches all up and down this coast? Can’t you see that you can’t possibly make a difference?”
    The man smiled, bent down, and picked up yet another starfish, and as he threw it back into the sea, he replied, "Made a difference to that one!"
    ~Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen

The Gift
    How beautiful a day can be
    When kindness touches it!
    ~George Elliston
    B ennett Cerf relates this touching story about a bus that was bumping along a back road in the South.
    In one seat a wispy old man sat holding a bunch of fresh flowers. Across the aisle was a young girl whose eyes came back again and again to the man’s flowers. The time came for the old man to get off. Impulsively he thrust the flowers into the girl’s lap.
    “I can see you love the flowers,” he explained, “and I think my wife would like for you to have them. I’ll tell her I gave them to you.” The girl accepted the flowers, then watched the old man get off the bus and walk through the gate of a small cemetery.
    ~As told by Bennett Cerf

A Brother Like That
    Sometimes being a brother is even better than being a superhero.
    ~Marc Brown
    A friend of mine named Paul received an automobile from his brother as a Christmas present. On Christmas Eve when Paul came out of his office, a street urchin was walking around the shiny new car, admiring it. “Is this your car, Mister?” he asked.
    Paul nodded. “My brother gave it to me for Christmas.” The boy was astounded. “You mean your brother gave it to you and it didn’t cost you nothing? Boy, I wish...” He hesitated.
    Of course Paul knew what he was going to wish for. He was going to wish he had a brother like that. But what the lad said jarred Paul all the way down to his heels.
    “I wish,” the boy went on, “that I could be a brother like that.” Paul looked at the boy in astonishment, then impulsively he added, “Would you like to take a ride in my automobile?” “Oh yes, I’d love that.”
    After a short ride, the boy turned and with his eyes aglow, said, “Mister, would you mind driving in front of my house?”
    Paul smiled a little. He thought he knew what the lad wanted. He wanted to show his neighbors that he could ride home in a big automobile. But Paul was wrong again. “Will you stop where those two steps are?” the boy asked.
    He ran up the steps. Then in a little while Paul heard him coming back, but he was not coming fast. He was carrying his little crippled brother. He sat him down on the bottom step, then sort of squeezed up against him and pointed to the car.
    “There she is, Buddy, just like I told you upstairs. His brother gave it to him for Christmas and it didn’t cost him a cent. And some day I’m gonna give you one just like it... then you can see for