A CHURCH MOUSE by MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN

Hetty Fifield has a problem. She needs a way to support herself. The local church has a problem too: it needs a new sexton.

Sounds like a perfect match.

There's just one complication.

Hetty is a woman.

In Mary E. Wilkins Freeman's delightful A Church Mouse, one determined New England woman sets out to prove that she is quite capable of sweeping a meetinghouse, tending its fires and ringing its bell, despite the objections of the men who aren't accustomed to seeing a woman doing the job.

Beneath the wit and small-town stubbornness, Freeman gives us something much larger to think about: What do we owe our neighbors? Is charity enough? Or is the greater kindness sometimes giving someone the opportunity to stand on their own?

Originally published in the 1891 collection A New England Nun and Other Stories, A Church Mouse is exactly the kind of overlooked treasure we love bringing back to life at 1001 Stories from the Gilded Age.

Sometimes the smallest stories ask the biggest questions.

Enjoy A CHURCH MOUSE by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman.