One day, a poor boy who was trying to pay his way through school by selling goods door to door found that he only had one dime left. He was hungry so he decided to beg for a meal at the next house.

However, he lost his nerve when a lovely young woman opened the door. Instead of a meal he asked for a drink of water. She thought he looked hungry so she brought him a large glass of milk. He drank it slowly, and then asked, “How much do I owe you?”

“You don’t owe me anything,” she replied. “Mother has taught me never to accept pay for a kindness. “   He said, “Then I thank you from the bottom of my heart. “ As Howard Kelly left that house, he not only felt stronger physically, but it also increased his faith in kindness and the human race. He was about to give up and quit before this point.

Years later the young woman became critically ill. The local doctors were baffled. They finally sent her to the big city, where specialists can be called in to study her rare disease. Dr. Howard Kelly, now famous, was called in for the consultation. When he heard the name of the town she came from, a strange light filled his eyes. Immediately, he rose and went down through the hospital hall into her room.

Dressed in his doctors gown he went in to see her.

The bill was sent to her room.

It was an unusually quiet day in the emergency room. Quiet, that is, except for the nurses who were standing around the nurses’ station complaining about having to work on Christmas Day.

I was triage (分诊) nurse that day. Since there were no patients waiting to be seen at the time, I came back to the nurses’ station for a cup of hot cider. Just then an admitting clerk came back and told me I had five patients waiting to be evaluated. “Five, how did I get five? I was just out there and no one was in the waiting room.” I complained. So I went straight out and called the first name. Five bodies showed up at my triage desk, a pale woman and four small children in somewhat messy clothing.

“Are you all sick?” I asked suspiciously.

“Yes,” she said weakly, and lowered her head.

“Okay,” I replied, unconvinced, “who’s first?” One by one they sat down, and I asked the usual questions. When it came to descriptions of their presenting problems, things got a little vague. A six-year-old girl had a headache, but the headache wasn’t accompanied by the normal body language of holding the head or trying to keep it still. Three children had earaches, but only one could tell me which ear was affected. The mother complained of a cough, but seemed to work to produce it.

Something was wrong with the picture. Our hospital policy, however, was not to turn away any patient, so we would see them. I checked the chart after the admitting clerk finished registering the family. No address—they were homeless. The waiting room was warm.

I went back to the nurse station and mentioned we had a homeless family in the waiting room. The nurses, complaining about working on Christmas Day, turned to sympathy for a family just trying to get warm on Christmas. The team went into action as much as we do when there’s a medical emergency. But this one was a Christmas emergency.

We took turns joining in the waiting room.

As the family were to leave, the six-year-old came running back.

It had been a challenging week, marked by a sudden large increase in oil prices coinciding with a sharp drop in temperatures in Boston. It was nearly below zero degree. With three missed workdays under my belt, my upcoming paycheck was going to be lower than normal. The stress weighed heavily on me as I carefully sought for every conceivable opportunity to save pennies, ensuring that I could afford both groceries and keep the house warm.

My eight-year-old son didn’t understand when I told him we were struggling that week. He had his heart set on a particular brand of yogurt, but I didn’t have the extra three dollars to buy it for him. It was the kind of yogurt decorated with a cartoon child skateboarding on its packaging, containing a mere two spoonfuls per cup. Such products, designed to lure children with their flashy marketing, only served to make me hate advertising.

However, a bunch of parental guilt gripped me as his innocent eyes met mine, silently questioning, “Why is yogurt such a big deal?” Determıned to sweep his disappointment, I made a sacrifice typical of single mothers. I returned an item needed to the shelf, ensuring that he could enjoy his favorite yogurt.

On the journey back from the grocery store, a sight caught my attention—a homeless man, holding a sign by the roadside. My heart ached, and I turned around, observing   passers-by purposefully steer (绕开) clear of him, avoiding any meaningful interaction. Even my son didn’t seem to care much. either. Yet, upon closer inspection, I noticed the man—bare hands grasping a piece of cardboard, snot frozen to his face, a worn-out jacket. And there I was struggling because I had to buy oil and groceries. But I decided to help. I pulled over to the man and handed him a five-dollar bill.

Seeing this, my son became confused and surprised.

On that day, my son performed an act that most adults wouldn’t have done.

When I was young, I lived in a small village in Melaka. All the people who lived there helped each other. The village had a variety of trades to meet the needs of the villagers. There was a barber, a tailor, a coffee shop owner, a grocer (食品杂货), and so on. All of us were quite poor but we got by. However, one family which was poorer than the others was the Lim family, who lived in the bicycle shop opposite our house.

Mr. Lim, who mended bikes, had many children — six to be exact. My mother was a kind-hearted soul. Often, she would say that Mr. Lim’s children were dressed in poor clothes and looked hungry. My family was one of the richer ones in the village. My parents would take whatever food we could spare to the Lim family.

I remember one particular year when times were very hard. Even my family had to make do with two meals a day, so we stopped the practice of giving food to Mr. Lim. One day, I noticed my mother looking troubled. She had learned that the Lim family had not been eating for the past two days. She decided to give some of our meals to the family, despite the protests from my brothers that were too hungry. Fortunately, the difficult time did not last long, and the children in our family went back to three meals a day.

As time went on, the number of customers at Lim’s shop increased, which was delightful. Business took off like a rocket, as the Chinese bikes he sold were very useful and popular. The family became much better off than before.

It was at this time that my father’s health was worsening. We were confused by the strange illness he was suffering from. Because he was unable to look after his food store, business got worse. My father had to sell our family car to pay off the increasing bills. My brothers and I had to stop going to school because we could not afford the fees.

When Mr. Lim learned of our difficulty, he said it was his turn to help.

With the help of Mr. Lim, the situation in my family took a turn for the better.