The Greatest Gift Read Online Free PDF Page B

be?”
    “That would be wonderful. Meanwhile, I’ll look for placesto carry the food. I already have at least one in mind. And I’ll get recommendations for some others.”
    “Do you think you can manage all alone?” he wondered.
    “I have three children, two of whom are old enough to help me,” she replied. “I’m sure they’ll be enthusiastic as well.”
    They were. She was amazed and delighted at her children’s response to the opportunity.
    “We could help people like that old man at the shelter,” Bob remarked. “He was much worse off than us.”
    “And that lady with the little baby. She was crying when nobody was looking,” Ann told them.
    “Then we’ll do what we can to help,” Mary said. She smiled at her children with pride. “The most precious gift we have is the ability to give to others less fortunate.”
    “That’s just what our teacher said at Christmas,” Bob said, “when he had us make up little packages for kids at the battered women’s shelter.”
    “That’s one place we could check out, to see if they could use some of the restaurant food,” Mary thought aloud. “I’m sure we’ll find other places, too,” she added. “It will mean giving up some things ourselves, though,” she told them. “We’ll be doing this after school and after work every day, even on weekends.”
    Bob and Ann grinned. “We won’t mind.”
    Mary gathered them all close, including little John, and hugged them. “You three are my greatest treasures,” she said. “I’m so proud of you!”
    Monday when she went back to the restaurant, Cecil was grinning from ear to ear. “They went for it,” he told her. “The manager and the owner agreed that it would be a wonderful civic contribution. I want to do my bit, as well, so I’ll pay for your gas.”
    She caught her breath. “That’s wonderful of you. Of all of you!”
    “Sometimes all it takes is one person to start a revolution, of sorts,” he told her. “You’re doing something wonderful and unselfish. It shames people who have more and do less.”
    She chuckled. “I’m no saint,” she told him. “I just want to make a little difference in the world and help a few people along the way.”
    “Same here. So when do you start?”
    “Tomorrow night. I’m already getting referrals.”
    “I’ll expect you at closing time.”
    “I’ll be here.”
    Mary was enthusiastic about her project, and it wasn’t difficult to find people who needed the food. One of the women she cleaned for mentioned a neighbor who was in hiding with her two children, trying to escape a dangerously abusive husband who’d threatened to kill her. She was afraid to go to a shelter, and she had no way to buy food. Mary took food to her in the basement of a church, along with toys and clothes for the children that had been provided by her employer. The woman cried like a baby. Mary felt wonderful.
    The next night, she took her box of food to the homeless shelter where the elderly man was staying. The residents were surprised and thrilled with the unexpected bonanza, and Bev, who ran the shelter, hugged her and thanked her profusely for the help. Mary made sure that Meg, the young woman with the baby, also had milk, which the restaurant had included two bottles of in the box. The elderly man, whom Bev had told her was called Sam Harlowe, delved into thefood to fetch a chicken leg. He ate it with poignant delight and gave Mary a big smile of thanks.
    On her third night of delivering food, after the children had helped her divide it into individual packages, Mary decided that there might be enough time to add another restaurant or two to her clientele.
    She wrote down the names and numbers of several other restaurants in the city and phoned them on her lunch hour. The problem was that she had no way for them to contact her. She didn’t have a phone and she didn’t want to alienate her motel manager by having the restaurants call him. She had to call back four of them,