Share the blessings

It was just one more of those dark, endless nights of what seemed a dark, endless winter. The snow kept falling, and although it was neither too thick nor too moist, it seemed like a white blanket spread all through the village. The cottage was a haven in the blizzard. Inside, Mother Mirth was stirring a pleasant-smelling copper pot over the fireplace, while young Ethel sat by her side knitting yet one more blanket. None of the family was going to be cold at night, they had enough wool and animal furs to get warm enough, the oak roof over their heads to protect them, and the stone walls were solid enough to stop the bravest gusts of wind that howled outside like a furious beast. The twins, Brent and Beldon, who were yet to see their seventh spring, kept teasing each other in boredom. In the darkest corner, Stanley Thorne smoked a pipe and kept staring at his family. He knew how lucky they were. It didn’t matter if it had cost him a few toes, the harvest last fall would allow him and his family to live through the season. 

A sudden knock on their door distracted him from his happy thoughts of bliss and abundance. “What was that, Mister Thorne?” said his wife, as her hand and the spoon she was using to cook dinner stopped dry in the air. “Perhaps it was just the wind”, mumbled Ethel. With the second knock, even the twins became silent. “Someone’s at the door, papa”, said Brent. “Should we open it?” asked Beldon, with a spark of excitement in his little blue eyes. “Mister Thorne, Stanley dear, wait…” said Mother Mirth in a whisper. He looked at his wife and could tell what she was thinking: no respectable soul would dare step a foot outside and go knock on a stranger’s cottage. “Not unless they had no choice”, he said to himself. And as he thought, he stood up and hobbled along towards the door.

“Who’s there?” he exclaimed in his deeper, most serious tone of voice. 

No one answered. Yet, there was one; two more knocks at the door.

“For the love of Our Lord, papa, don’t open the door, don’t let anybody in. They could hurt us!” it was Ethel this time, covering her cheeks with the knitting. Her face had become red imagining wrongdoers behind the door, and picturing only for a second the kind of things they could do to her specifically.

But the knocks were soft, somehow gentle on the wooden door. And the wind was cold, and the snow was freezing, and there was a huge pot of stew over the fireplace that could feed the five of them, and still, there was enough to satisfy another hungry soul. And Stanley Thorne believed in a merciful God, and his strong faith had taken good care of him and his family so far in life. “Blessings are meant to be shared”, he thought while slowly opening the door.

Standing barefoot, dressed only in some thin, dirty fabric, with her already white hair covered with snowflakes, there was a tiny old lady, a beggar, extending her right-hand palm up. The eyes of Stanley Thorne opened wide, as he stepped aside to let the poor woman inside the cottage. She looked filthy, yet she did not smell. She looked at him but still did not move. The warm air inside the cottage was escaping through the opened door, and Ethel and Mother Mirth began to tremble. “For the love of God, woman, come inside!” exclaimed Mister Thorne, carefully taking the old beggar by her elbow, and guiding her towards the fireplace.

Half an hour later, the whole family and the old woman were joined together next to the warmth of the orange flames. Each of them was holding a bowl of hot stew, with pieces of carrot, beans, a bunch of peas, meat, and chicken bones floating in a fatty, juicy liquid the beggar seemed to enjoy as much as the rest of them. She was yet to say a word though, and after she had been covered with a thick blanket, and her bare feet covered with the only pair of boots Thorne had –“take ‘em, good woman, my feet won’t serve me better anyway”, he said, displaying his missing toes on his left foot-, the family was convinced she was a mute.

In any case, she was a strange old woman. Earlier on, when they had welcomed her inside and Mother Mirth and her daughter had removed the beggar’s wet clothes and offered her spare dress, together with the warmest blanket ever knitted by Ethel’s hands, the women couldn’t help but noticing the stranger’s body was white, smooth, and ageless: no breasts, no hair in her private parts (were there any private parts at all? Mother Mirth avoided staring). It seemed as the wrinkles and the old age were limited to her ancient face and her limbs, which looked like crooked branches. She was a weird wanderer indeed, but, Mother Mirth remembered her husband’s words, “A blessing one does not share is a curse in disguise”. And they were blessed in the dark, winter night. 

It was late. Their stomachs were full. The mother and the children had gone to bed and always limping, Stanley Thorne arranged a pile of animal furs in front of the fireplace, so the poor woman could spend the night inside. She silently smiled and looked into his eyes for the first time. “You take some rest now, good woman”, he mumbled, not without a strange feeling down his guts, “and we will see about you in the morning”. 

But there was nothing to be seen. When the sun went up the following morning, displaying with the trembling light of its rays the whiteness all around the cottage, and Stanley Thorne and his wife woke up, they found that the improvised bed by the fireplace was already empty. There was no sign of the old woman. The boots, the blanket, and the dress were carefully placed in a corner, spotlessly clean. When he rushed to the door, he discovered there were no footsteps on the snow surrounding the cottage either. 

“Mister Thorne”, whispered Mother Mirth.

“I wonder where she could possibly have gone in this awfully cold winter dawn”, he mumbled, closing the door behind his back.

“Mister Thorne”, she insisted, “Stanley, dear, look! Look at your feet!”

And Stanley Thorne looked down and found out all of his ten toes, and as he walked around he no longer hobbled. His three children had already woken up and three pairs of eyes stared at him in marvel. He was speechless. But Ethel found the right words.

“You know papa, it’s what you always say. Blessings are meant to be shared.”