When my father, Joe, a Hungarian immigrant, came to America in 1912, he was only 19 years old. As the oldest in his family, he felt it was his duty to work hard and send most of his earnings back to Hungary to help his parents and siblings.

He soon landed a job working as a lumberjack in northern Michigan. As he later told me, he relished the physical work and loved the outdoors. In those vast forests he felt even closer to God.

He and several other lumberjacks worked in a small camp for a large company. After they cut several hundred cords of wood, a company man would come to the camp once or twice a month and measure the amount of wood cut. The lumberjacks got paid according to the amount they cut. More wood, more pay.

One November, when it was getting close to the company man's visit, several of my father's fellow workers seemed downcast and withdrawn. In his broken English, my father asked what the problem was.

"I'll tell you what the problem is," said a man named Big Jake. "That company man, he's a crook!"

"How so?" asked my father, who had been on the job for a few months.

"Well," said Big Jake, "it works like this. When we measure the logs, this man, Pete, picks one of us to hold one end of the tape and walk ahead of him. He holds the other end. As we go along, Pete moves the tape a few feet further up so we get cheated out of several cords."

"Why, that's dishonest!" exclaimed my father.

"Of course it's dishonest!" cried Big Jake. "But we don't dare complain to the company because we're afraid of getting fired. We all have families to support."

"Why doesn't another man just walk beside Pete to make sure he doesn't cheat?"

"He won't allow it," said Jake, "Pete insists he only needs one man with him. Everyone else is sent to another part of the forest to work."

Guess who's coming to dinner?
It was a blustery November day when Pete was scheduled to arrive at the logging camp. Inside the lumberjacks' cabin, my father prepared pans of bread dough and a large ham to cook in the wood-burning stove. My father was a good cook and often prepared meals in addition to cutting trees.

"What are you doing, Joe?" one of the men asked in alarm. "We were saving that ham for Thanksgiving!"

My father smiled. "Never mind boys. We'll buy another ham for Thanksgiving. We're going to share this one with Pete."

	"C'mon," Pete said to my father, "We'll go measure the logs. You can help me hold the tape."

All the loggers gathered in the cabin thought my father had completely lost his mind. "We never feed that crook, Joe! How can you think of giving that man our food?"

"Well, it's a cold day, and he's making a long trip. After all, Pete is a fellow human being," replied my father.

The others just shook their heads. But there was no arguing with my father.

Needless to say, when Pete, nearly frozen, came trudging up to the cabin, he was met by delicious smells coming from the cabin. Besides the ham, my father's homemade bread was enough to make anyone's mouth water.

"Are you hungry, sir?" my father asked.

Startled, Pete was at a loss for words. In the years he worked for the company, he had never been invited to a meal. Finally, he answered gruffly, "Why, yes. Yes, I am. Thank you."

So they all sat down to a hearty feast of hickory-smoked ham, thick slabs of warm bread smothered in fresh butter, pickles right from the barrel, and mugs of hot coffee and sugar.

Hospitality pays off
The delicious meal and warm cabin made everyone relax. Even Pete joined in the conversation a little, encouraged by my father. The animosity between the loggers and Pete seemed to disappear like the smoke up the chimney.

But after the meal, it was back to business. As Pete put on his coat, he asked my father, "Where did you learn to bake bread like that?"

"As the oldest of eight children, I'd often help my mother in the kitchen. She taught me how to cook."

"C'mon," Pete said, "we'll go measure the logs. You can help me hold the tape."

Approaching the long rows of stacked logs, Pete handed one end of the tape to my father. "I'll walk in front," Pete said to my father's surprise. "You hold the tape in back."

As they walked along my father had a fleeting thought. I could cheat Pete if I wanted to—giving him measurements longer than the real ones!

But my father knew that two wrongs wouldn't make a right. He measured the wood as accurately as possible. As long as Pete trusted him, both the company and the workers would get a fair and honest measurement. That's the way it should be.

After Pete left, my father told the other lumberjacks the total amount of wood he and Pete ended up with.

"Ah," said Big Jake, "that's more like it. That sounds very close to what I figured."

He slapped my father on the back, "Well done, Joe! I guess that bread of yours did go a long way!"

"Sometimes it's good to try something different when there's a problem," my father said. "I guess even people like Pete can change."

With a big grin he added, "When we get paid, we need to buy another ham!"

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