A Nice Deed

When I got home last night, I didn't even step much beyond our front door except to put my purse on the kitchen counter. Since I had a friend coming over, I wanted to make sure there was a clear path from our driveway to our back door. Snow tends to drift a bit around our house, creating huge drifts on our walkway.

As I started shoveling the snow and chipping away at the ice underneath, I saw two kids with shovels walking by our house. They stopped at the bottom of our driveway, watching me, and conversing between themselves. I steadily kept going, waiting for the question I knew was coming.

"Would you like us to shovel your driveway?" one of the boys finally asked.

I answered truthfully, "Thanks, but I don't have any cash on me right now."

"Oh. No. We don't want money," the boy replied.

I stood up and leaned on the handle of my shovel, slightly stunned.

"Um. Okay. Well, it would be really awesome if you could just do the end of the driveway from where you're standing on the sidewalk," I motioned, thinking that this would be enough so that I could pull my car into the garage. The two boys shrugged at each other over my odd request and began pushing snow into the side banks.

As I got near the end of the walkway, I looked up to see that they had ignored my directions and had begun shoveling the rest of the driveway. When they paused for a moment, I asked them,

"Would you guys like some brownies? I could wrap up a couple for you."

They nodded, "Sure."

I dropped my shovel and quickly walked inside, wrapping up two brownies each in a big napkin.

"Here. I made these last night," I said as I passed them out.

They thanked me and one boy admonished the other, "Don't eat it right now!"

We finished the driveway together and before they left, I thanked them and asked their names. It turns out they live just a few houses away. I watched them amble down the street, stopping to talk to other neighbors along the way.