Maria's Gift to the world

Maria was a simple peasant girl who lived in the village of Saraville, on the cusp of an inhospitable desert. Her father had been killed in combat, and her mother had died years before while giving birth to her brother. Maria was in the care of her Aunt Ellen, a hard-working domestic who cleaned house for one of the wealthy members of the community. Her family lived in a shack on the eastern edge of the village. It was a humble existence to say the least, and the merchant class called her neighborhood “the boondocks.”
Since her aunt spent a lot of time at work, Maria was by herself much of the time. However, she busied herself with arts and crafts projects after her chores were done. She attended an art workshop on Saturdays when she wasn’t too busy. Since it was late autumn, a cold and dark time of year, she wanted to prepare for winter by working on something that would brighten up the season a bit. She always enjoyed gazing at the evening sky and wondered how stars could keep on shining brightly without ever burning out. She missed the stars this time of year, since it was often cloudy out.
A few months earlier Maria had decided to start working on this ambitious project--a big star, about six feet tall and four feet wide. It happened that the mayor of Saraville was having a contest--a light fair rewarding the thing that would best brighten the landscape, make travelers want to visit the town and even attract the Roman emperor. The winner of this contest would get three months of free food. Maria’s family could certainly use the prize. And Maria wanted to win, more than anything else in the world. She often scavenged for materials for the star in the scraps left by carpenters and craftsmen--wood, string, clay, and more. She collected about two or three scraps a week. The workmen thought she was a bit odd for wanting their scraps, but still they let her have them. Few of the other kids took Maria and her project seriously, though.
“Maria, your chance of winning is about the same as a July blizzard in Saraville,” the other kids taunted. The words pierced her, but she refused to let it show. She continued to work diligently on her star. She sandpapered down the wood, so the points were crisp and sharp. She worked so hard at her star that sometimes she got blisters on her hands. “I’ve got to win--my family needs that food,” she said to herself every time she got tired and felt like quitting.
By November, Maria’s aunt noticed that Maria was becoming sickly. “You’re spending too much time on that star! You’ve got to study so you can learn a trade, so you can build a life for yourself. And to do that, you’ll have to do better than 75’s in school.”
“I know, Aunt Ellen, but this contest means a lot to me. Besides, I’ll be hitting the books by January.”
Maria spent the last week before the contest decorating her star; she used simple peasant symbols in adorning it. Some of her classmates, who came from wealthier families, were able to afford fancier tinsels and trimmings, as well as marble--as opposed to mere wood. Their stars could glow just the way they thought the mayor and merchants wanted them to.
There was no stopping Maria’s project, though. The deadline was looming, and she continued to carve, saw, and sandpaper away. Then, finally, she was done. Her next task was getting the star to the town square, a mile away. The star was awfully heavy for a nine-year-old girl to lug all the way downtown. However, Maria’s friend Sue, whose father had several wagons, offered to help.
“My father has a wagon he uses for the grain harvest, and he never uses it this time of year. I’ll have him bring it down here, and we can wheel it downtown.”
So, on the 14th of December, the day of the light show, they got the wagon and began to wheel Maria’s star downtown. The streets were made of cobblestone, so the ride was awfully bumpy. There were also sharp turns, making the trek even more of an ordeal. It was also a chilly day with a biting wind. Finally, after lugging the star for an hour, they made it to the Town Square.
Upon arriving, they saw about 100 kids and their projects. There were all sorts of fascinating things, from images of the god Saturn to replicas of the goddess Venus, from kerosene lamps to gold-spangled images of wolves and sheep, from images of the sun to facsimiles of the moon-- craters and all.
Maria’s star seemed so simple compared to the razzle-dazzle of the other kids’ projects. Fortunately, Maria’s friend Sue was there, with her fantasy project--she called it a chariot that ran on kerosene. She dubbed it a karriot, or karr for short. It was something she’d thrown together the previous week, with her dad’s help, just so Maria wouldn’t be alone at the light fair.
By the time Maria arrived at the square, she'd caught a cold. She was barely able to make it through the light fair ceremony, but she was determined to. After the mayor’s pompous speech on commerce, goodwill, and the feast of Saturnalia, the judges began to deliberate. There were about ten of these men, and each man had ten items to look over. The judge asked Maria a few questions.
“So, what’s your name, Miss, and what is the purpose of your project?”
“My name’s Maria, and it’s a star, a new kind of star, one that I thought the town of Saraville needs ‘cause of the long, dark winter we’re bound to have.”
“Well, I can see you’ve worked a long time at your star, but it just doesn’t quite have the oomph-or the aura that Saraville needs. We need a big bright magnetic sort of thing that brings people to our town and will make them want to stay in our inns,” he told her.
Maria nodded, trying to fight back tears, which were beginning to stream down her cheeks. The prize went to some boy named Ju Scaralot, or something like that. His project was
a flattened out golden moon with thirty pieces of shimmering tinsel on it. It certainly didn’t hurt
that his father employed most of the goldsmiths--and silversmiths-- in town.
Maria was crushed. She then realized that she didn’t want the star anymore. “It’s of no use to me at all--it didn’t win anything,” she said to Sue.
“I didn’t win, either, but I didn’t really care. I don’t think Saraville is ready for karrs yet, anyway. Besides, there’s a boy, about our age over there. He looks sad, too. I think he’s the kid who was pounding on his drum. I could hear it from far away--I wanted to introduce myself, but he seemed so scared,” Sue said.
“Yeah, I saw him, too. It seemed as though he worked really hard on that drum, too. I liked it, but the judges didn’t. I’d like to meet him, but it’s getting late. Anyway, Let’s just take the wagon, wheel the star out somewhere--and just leave it there,” Maria said. “That way I can just forget about it and get on with my life.”
“Well all right, Maria, but it’s getting late. It’s almost dark, and we’ve got to be home in an hour,” Sue replied.
In half an hour they found a field on the outskirts of town. It was near a place where shepherds tended their flocks near a barn and stable. “Maybe the animals will like it. They won’t mind that it was a peasant girl who made the star.” The field was desolate and abandoned; two months had passed since the harvest. Maria left her star there, gazing at it one last time. Sue decided to leave her karr there as well. Maybe someone will discover them come March, they thought.
Maria and Sue then headed home. Maria’s cold was getting worse, as it was beginning to rain--a cold, penetrating rain. The wind began to pick up, too. Finally, though, Maria and Sue got home-they lived only four blocks away from each other. Those last four blocks were especially difficult for Maria. The wind was starting to howl, and the rain was beginning to pelt menacingly. There was even some snow in the mountains.
Maria’s cold was getting worse and worse. By the time she staggered into her house, she was too weak to even walk to the fire her aunt had made for the family. The next day, the cold became pneumonia, and Maria was barely breathing.
Meanwhile, the rain had stopped, but the wind continued. In the field where Maria had left her star, the wind really began to blow, reaching gale force. One strong gust lifted the star and the karr and carried them away. Somehow, the kerosene from the karr spilled onto Maria’s star, and the wind ignited it. The star, instead of burning out, rose into the sky--and it kept getting brighter. It began to radiate more and more as it rose. As the star continued to ascend, it got bigger and bigger. Since it was cloudy outside, no one noticed this star at first.
A few days later, Maria’s pneumonia worsened. She could barely move. Her family could not afford a doctor, so Maria had little time left in the world. She was at peace, though, because the weather was getting better. She could see a ray of light from her room, but she did not know where it was from. It wasn’t the moon, because the moon was in its new phase.
That very night Maria died, and her soul went up to meet her mom and dad, whom she hadn’t seen in years. As she was traveling from earth to heaven, she could see a luminous star in the sky, a star like nothing she’d ever seen before. It also looked vaguely familiar, but she didn’t know why.
Maria had no idea that her small star, only six feet across, the one she’d left in a field by a stable somewhere, became the Star of Stars, the one that traveled around the world and returned to another small town, not far from Saraville, two weeks later. This star, which was scorned by the children and ignored by the adults of Saraville, became the brightest object in the night sky. It led three well-traveled men to a manger, where a virgin, a peasant much like Maria, gave birth to a baby boy. Maria then realized where the star had come from and realized why she’d worked so long on the star, her gift to the world.