Inspirational Short Stories – The Black & White Pebble (Story # 32)

Here we come with an another motivational story in our series of Motivational and inspirational Short Stories. Today we will share with you motivational Story – “The Black & White Pebble”. The heart touching story is about a farmer and her beautiful daughter. How a moneylender wanted to ditch them and the response of farmer’s daughter makes it a classical example of “out of the box thinking”. This one is my favorite and deserve the place in our inspirational short stories series. Without wasting much of your time, let us move straight to the inspiring story.

Inspirational Short Stories – The Black & White Pebble (Story # 32)

In a small Italian village, hundreds of years ago, a farmer had the misfortune of owing a large sum of money to a village moneylender (loan-shark). The moneylender was old, unattractive looking, unmarried guy and fancied marrying the farmer’s beautiful daughter.

He made a plan to pressurize the farmer to repay the loan. He went to the farms; where farmer and his daughter were working. The moneylender asked farmer for repayment of outstanding loans. The farmer asked the moneylender to give some more time to return the loan. The money lender pretended to be furious for a while and then proposed a bargain. He said that if the farmer would not repay his debt, he would be punished, or he had an option to let the money lender marry his daughter and all his debt would be waived.

Needless to say, this proposal was met with a look of disgust.

Both the farmer and his daughter were horrified by the proposal. There was no way the farmer could pay back the large amount of money soon; and he did not want his beautiful daughter to marry the old & cruel moneylender.

To persuade the farmer to accept his deal, cunning money-lender suggested that they let providence decide the matter. He told them that he would put a black pebble and a white pebble into an empty bag. The girl then had to choose a pebble which would decide her fate.

Also Read:  The Saint and the Scorpion (Story # 20)

In any case, the shrewd old moneylender wanted to make the proposal look “fairer” to the young lady. So he proposed tricky conditions:

• If she picked the black pebble, she would have to marry the money lender and her father’s debt would be forgiven.
• If she picked the white pebble, she did not need marry the money lender and her father’s debt would still be forgiven.
• If she refuses to pick the pebble, the farmer would be thrown into jail.

As they were standing on a pebble-strewn path in the farmer’s field. The moneylender bent over to pick up two pebbles and kept them in a bag. He, however, kept two black pebbles in the bag instead of a black and a white. The sharp-eyed girl noticed it and was confused what to do. She knew that she was being cheated by the money lender.

What would you have done?

Now, imagine that you were standing in the field. What would you have done if you were the girl? Or, if you had to advise her, what would you have told her?

Careful analysis would produce three possibilities:

• The girl should refuse to take a pebble.
• The girl should know that there were two black pebbles in the bag and expose the money-lender as a cheat.
• The girl should pick a black pebble and sacrifice herself in order to save her father from his debt and imprisonment.

Take a moment to ponder this. Done ?? Now read on… here comes the difference between Lateral Thinking and logical thinking.

The beautiful girl thought for a while and then kept her hand into the moneybag and drew out a pebble. Without looking or showing it to anyone, she fumbled and let it fall into the pebble-strewn path where it got lost among the other pebbles.

“Oh, I am sorry, how clumsy of me”, she said. “But never mind, if you look into the bag for the one that is left, we will know which pebble I picked.”

The black pebble in the bag made it look like the girl had chosen the white pebble. And the money lender didn’t have any other option to prove the other way because his dishonesty will be exposed. The girl did not have to marry the old moneylender and her father ‘s debt was waived. The girl, with her sheer brilliance and out of the box thinking, changed the seemingly impossible situation into an extremely advantageous one.

Moral of the Inspirational Short Story

The girl looked beyond the obvious to find a solution in a way that wouldn’t initially come to mind. There is more than one solution to every problem. Never contain yourself to limited beliefs and thoughts. Think outside of the box, not in to the only options you think you have to pick from. It’s always possible to overcome a tough situation through out of the box thinking.

Want to read More Inspirational Short Stories?

1. Nail on the fence
2. Life is a race
3. The window seat
4. Two shoe salesmen
5. The Black Balloon

So that’s all from my side in this post. Over to you now, I and Invajy readers would love to hear your thoughts and learning from this inspirational short story – The Black & White Pebble. Please feel free to share them in comments section.

I hope you have enjoyed this inspirational story.  If you have liked this story – The Black & White Pebble, please share with your friends and relatives at your favorite social media networks to help inspire others to remember its valuable lesson.