I had not been wrong about this young lady. She had done exactly what I had hoped she would.
Rachel had rented the little hut for the equivalent of ten dollars a month and she was realizing the same return each day, of which forty per cent was profit. She had been able to stock the whole store with what I had given her and enough to buy some bedding and cooking utilities.
The shop was opened every day from seven in the morning until ten at night when she would roll out her mattress and sleep in her little dream palace.
I must have been looking into her dancing eyes for about a full minute before she woke me from my daydream with a resounding greeting.
‘Hello John, is there anyone at home?’
and she broke into an intoxicating peal of laughter.
I had been thinking how easy it was to make a dream come true and spread a little happiness in such a simple way. To bring joy into someone’s heart must be one of the most beautiful experiences you can ever have and it will always live with you. How I wished that the world could truly understand that giving is so much more satisfying than receiving when you see how you can change someone’s life for what is little more than a tip at a rich man’s dining table.
While the diminutive store was Rachel’s bread-and-butter, it was her sense of independence that shone out like the first golden rays of a new day dawning. The shafts of inner enlightenment bearing witness that she was breaching age-old traditions.
This serene young lady would not easily let go of her new-found freedom – the manacles of convention had been a hard task master and one to which she would not bow down to if she could circumvent its historical enslavement.
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