d best.

"Hitherto I have kept away from the workers in the vineyard as much as I
possibly could. Some of them have come for five years in succession, and
I neither remembered their faces nor knew their names. Now, not because
I felt that it was my duty, but because I really wanted to, I have tried
to come a little closer, to see into their lives as best I might.

[Sidenote: The Humble Toilers]

"I have seen before me such dramas of suffering and love as have made me
ashamed, more than once, of my own worthless life and my own vain
repinings. These humble toilers in my vineyard had come nearer the truth
of things than I had, and were happier. Night after night I have been
glad of the shelter of the darkness and have moved back out of the
circle of light made by the camp-fire, that none of them might see my
face.

"One woman, too weak and ill to work, would lie down among the vines to
rest, while her husband filled her basket from his own. They needed
money for a crippled child who could be made right by an expensive
operation. One night I saw a lantern moving back and forth among the
vines, and when I went out to investigate, the man was hard at work,
filling basket after basket, because he knew that it was not right to
draw two people's pay without doing two people's work.

"He had done this every night, and sometimes, too, the woman had spent
her limited strength labouring beside him. Both were nearly heartbroken,
having figured up that, at the rate the work was being done, they would
still be twenty dollars short of the desired sum. So I gave them this,
and they are to return it when they can. If it is not possible to
return it earlier, they are to come next year and work it out. I have
no fear that they will not come, but, even should they fail me, I would
rather lose the money and have my trust betrayed, than to miss a chance
of helping where I might.

[Sidenote: A Feast for the Workers]

"One man had been saving for years that he might send to Italy for his
wife and children. His earnings would give him a little more than the
amount he needed, and he was counting the days until he could put his
plan into execution. He could neither read nor write, so, one night, by
the camp-fire, I wrote his letter for him, in my best schoolmaster's
hand, for the first time finding my scanty knowledge of Italian of some
real use.

"We have always given them a feast when the work was over, and sent some
trifling presents