This story tells boundlessly noble popular trait of Chairman Kim Jong Il.
It was summer in 1961 when Kim Jong Il participated in the Wasan dong-Ryongsong road extension project during the Kim Il Sung University days.
One day, he saw an unfamiliar aged woman standing on the construction site with an empty coal-bucket in her hand.
He approached to her bowing politely and asked why she was standing there.
She said that she would like to take some coal.
He asked in a concerned tone whether her house was lack of coal.
She said without reserve that she just gathered coal as it was pity to see the precious coal buried under the ground.
Listening to her, Kim Jong Il saw to it that a bulldozer pushed earth aside and an excavator took out coal and placed it on a place of safety.
Kim Jong Il personally took her fire shovel and filled the bucket with coal saying that she may bring coal free from anxiety.
Feeling grateful, she thanked him for his labor for the sake of the aged.
Declining positively, Kim Jong Il said that precious coal would have been buried under the earth if she had not told the valuable fact to the students. He also said it was excellent to value and dear even a lump of coal as she did.
She approached to Kim Jong Il and asked him in a whisper whether she could have an opportunity to meet President Kim Il Sung’s son as she had been told that he was working at the construction site.
Kim Jong Il said in a soft tone that it was difficult to find him immediately at such a huge construction site but she would meet him if she really wanted to do.
She nodded as if she had understood him. At the moment when she was to carry the bucket on her head, Kim Jong Il carried the bucket to a low hill, telling her not to carry the bucket as there are young people around her.
A student whispered her that he was Kim Jong Il.
Surprised so much, she rushed back to Kim Jong Il. But she was too confused to thank him by saying “What should I say... You have done such rough work for me, the aged…”
Kim Jong Il said heartily to her, who was feeling awkward, that working for the people was the most worthy in the world, adding that he was also a son of the working people and how could he hesitate to do anything for the sake of the people.
Listening to him, she looked up to the image of him, another great man who embodied noble popular traits of the President.
