Human Kindness

Human Kindness

Sophia, a healer, was naturally kind and generous. One day, while foraging to stock her depleted supplies of healing plants, she came across a woman lying on the side of the road, battered and unconscious.

Immediately she built a travois from sturdy branches and hauled the woman back to her hovel to help her. When they arrived, the healer gently carried her inside and put her in her own bed.

Then she sat down in a rocking chair near the bed, removed a skein of yarn from a nail on the wall near it, and began to knit. Her patient slept on for days. At last, a voice spoke abruptly from the bed:

“Fetch your mistress, I must have better lodgings!”

Sophia quirked an eyebrow but said kindly.

“I’m afraid that this is the best I can do. I am mistress here.”

“Impudent!” the woman said.

“Take me back to my manor house! I cannot stay in these filthy surroundings!”

“My name is Sophia; I am a healer.”

“I am Countess Diva, but then of course you must have heard of me!”

The healer woman shook her head.

“Summon a coach for me!”

“I do not own one.”

“How do you live? In a tiny house like this, with only simple clothes and no coach?”

“I live this way because I choose to.”

Diva sniffed.

She watched curiously as Sophia soaked the shawl she had knitted in warm milk and hung it to dry.

“What is that?” she blurted.

“It’s a milk of human kindness infused wool shawl. I made it for you.”

When it was dry, Diva stroked it.

“It’s soft and warm," she said as she put it on.

“I’ll send a messenger to your manor as soon as I can.”

“No need I shall walk.”