温馨提醒：系统正在全面升级。您可以访问最新站点。谢谢！

  　In her work on the streets, Nicci came to understand the needs of many of the people there. Their problems seemed insurmountable. No matter what she did, it never seemed to resolve anything. Brother Narev said it was only a sign that she wasn't giving enough of herself. Each time she failed, at Brother Narev's or Mother's urging, Nicci redoubled her efforts.

  　One night at dinner, after being in the fellowship several years, she said, "Father, there is a man I've been trying to help. He has ten children and no job. Will you hire him, please?"

  　Father looked up from his soup. "Why?"

  　"I told you. He has ten children."

  　"But what sort of work can he do? Why would I want him?"

  　"Because he needs a job."

  　Father set down his spoon. "Nicci, dear, I employ skilled workers. That he has ten children is not going to shape steel, now is it? What can the man do? What skills has he?"

  　"If he had a skill, Father, he could get work. Is it fair that his children should starve because people won't give him a chance?"

  　Father looked at her as if inspecting a wagonload of some suspicious new metal, Mother's narrow mouth turned up in a little 【创建和谐家园】ile, but she said nothing.

  　"A chance? At what? He has no skill."

  　"With a business as big as yours, surely you can give him a job."

  　He tapped a finger on the stem of his spoon as he considered her determined expression. He cleared his throat. "Well, perhaps I could use a man to load wagons."

  　"He can't load wagons. He has a bad back. He hasn't been able to work for years because of his back troubling him so."

  　Father's brow drew down. "His back didn't prevent him from begetting ten children.

  　Nicci wanted to do good, and so she met his stare with a steady look of her own. "Must you be so intolerant, Father? You have jobs, and this man needs one. He has hungry children needing to be fed and clothed. Would you deny him a living just because he has never had a fair chance in life? Are you so rich that all your gold has blinded your eyes to the needs of humble people?"

  　"But I need - "

  　"Must you always frame everything in terms of what you need, instead of what others need? Must everything be for you?"

  　"It's a business - "

  　"And what is the purpose of a business? Isn't it to employ those who need work? Wouldn't it be better if the man had a job instead of having to humiliate himself begging? Is that what you want? For him to beg rather than work? Aren't you the one who always speaks so highly of hard work?"

  　Nicci was firing the questions like arrows, getting them off so fast he couldn't get a word through her barrage. Mother 【创建和谐家园】iled as Nicci rolled out words she knew by heart.

  　"Why must you reserve your greatest cruelty for the least fortunate among us? Why can't you for once think of what you can do to help, instead of always thinking of money, money, money? Would it hurt you to hire a man who needs a job? Would it Father? Would it bring your business to an end? Would that ruin you?"

  　The room echoed her noble questions. He stared at her as if seeing her for the first time. He looked as if real arrows had struck him. His jaw worked, but no words came out. He didn't seem able to move; he could only gape at her.

  　Mother beamed.

  　"Well . . ." he finally said, "I guess . . ." He picked up his spoon and stared down into his soup. "Send him around, and I'll give him a job."

  　Nicci swelled with a new sense of pride - and power. She had never known it would be so easy to stagger her father. She had just bested his selfish nature with nothing more than goodness.

  　Father pushed back from the table. "I . . . I need to go back to the shop." His eyes searched the table, but he would not look at Nicci or Mother. "I just remembered . . . I have some work I must see to."

  　After he had gone, Mother said, "I'm glad to see that you have chosen the righteous path, Nicci, instead of following his evil ways. You will never regret letting your love of mankind guide your feelings. The Creator will 【创建和谐家园】ile upon you."

  　Nicci knew she had done the right thing, the moral thing, yet the thought that came to haunt her victory was the night her father had come into her room and silently stroked her brow as she had held two of his fingers to her cheek.

  　The man went to work for Father. Father never mentioned anything about it. His work kept him busy and away from home. Nicci's work took more and more of her time, as well. She missed seeing that look in his eyes. She guessed she was growing up.

  　The next spring, when Nicci was thirteen, she came home one day from her work at the fellowship to find a woman in the sitting room with Mother. Something about the woman's demeanor made the hair at the back of Nicci's neck stand on end. Both women rose as Nicci set aside her list of names of people needing things.

  　"Nicci, darling, this is Sister Alessandra. She's traveled here from the Palace of the Prophets, in Tanimura."

  　The woman was older than Mother. She had a long braid of fine brown hair looped around in a circle and pinned to the back of her skull like a loaf of braided bread. Her nose was a little too big for her face, and she was plain, but not at all ugly. Her eyes focused on Nicci with an unsettling intensity, and they didn't dart about, the way Mother's always did.

  　"Was it quite a journey, Sister Alessandra?" Nicci asked after she had curtsied. "All the way from Tanimura, I mean?"

  　"Three days is all," Sister Alessandra said. A 【创建和谐家园】ile grew on her face as she took in Nicci's bony frame. "My, my. So little, yet, for such grownup work." She held out a hand toward a chair. "Won't you sit with us, dear?"

  　"Are you a Sister with the fellowship?" Nicci asked, not really understanding who the woman was.

  　"The what?"

  　"Nicci," Mother said, "Sister Alessandra is a Sister of the Light."

  　Astonished, Nicci dropped into a chair. Sisters of the Light had the gift, just like her and Mother. Nicci didn't know very much about the Sisters, except that they served the Creator. That still didn't settle her stomach. To have such a woman right there in her house was intimidating - like when she stood before Brother Narev. She felt an inexplicable sense of doom.

  　Nicci was also impatient because she had duties waiting. There were donations to collect. She had older sponsors who accompanied her to some of the places. For other places, they said a young girl could get better results by herself, by shaming people who had more than they deserved. Those people, who had businesses, all knew who she was. They would always stammer and ask how her father was. As she had been instructed, Nicci told them how pleased her father would be to know they were thoughtful to the needy. In the end, most became civic-minded.

  　Then, there were remedies Nicci needed to take to women with sick children. There wasn't enough clothing for the children, either. Nicci was trying to get some people to give cloth and other people to sew clothes. Some people had no homes, others were crowded together in little rooms. She was trying to get some rich people to donate a building. Also, Nicci had been assigned the task of locating jugs for women to bring water from the well. She needed to pay a visit to the potter. Soma of the older children had been caught stealing. Others had been fighting, and a few of them were beating younger children bloody. Nicci had been pleading on their behalf, trying to explain that they had no fair chance, and were only reacting to their cruel circumstance. She hoped to convince Father to take on at least a few so they might have work.

  　The problems just kept mounting, without any end in sight. It seemed like the more people the fellowship helped, the more people there were who needed help. Nicci had thought she was going to solve the problems of the world; she was beginning to feel hopelessly inadequate. It was her own failing, she knew. She needed to work harder.

  　"Do you read and write, dear?" the Sister asked.

  　"Not very much, Sister. Mostly just names. I've much too much to do for those less fortunate than myself. Their needs must come before any selfish desires of my own."

  　Mother 【创建和谐家园】iled and nodded to herself.

  　"Practically a good spirit in the flesh." The Sister's eyes teared. "I've heard about your work."

  　"You have?" Nicci felt a flash of pride, but then she thought of how things never seemed to get better, despite all her efforts, and her sense of failure returned. Besides, Mother said pride was evil. "I don't see what's so special about what I do. The people in the streets are the ones who are special, because of their suffering in horrid conditions. They are the true inspiration."

  　Mother 【创建和谐家园】iled contentedly. Sister Alessandra leaned forward, her tone serious. "Have you learned to use your gift, child?"

  　"Mother teaches me to do some 【创建和谐家园】all things, like how to heal little troubles, but I know it would be unfair to flaunt it over those less blessed than I, so I try my best not to use it."

  　The Sister folded her hands in her lap. "I've been talking to your mother, while we waited for you. She's done a fine job of getting you started on the right path. We feel, however, that you would have so much more to offer were you to serve a higher calling."

  　Nicci sighed. "Well, all right. Maybe I can get up a little earlier. But I already have my duties to the needy, and I will have to fit this other in as I can. I hope you understand, Sister. I'm not trying to get undeserved sympathy, honestly I'm not, but I hope you don't need this calling done too soon, as I'm already quite busy."