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very least of my problems.
    Still, that night in Myra I could hardly sleep, as much for being excited as for the nasty bedbugs that crawled everywhere along the floor and walls. In the morning I would visit Bishop Nicholas’s tomb, pray, and then make my way to the market. There I would buy bread and dried fruit and some blankets, and spend much of the next few nights quietly distributing them by the sleeping mats of the poor.
    Only the first part of my plan went as expected. I was up with the sun and hurried to the tomb, which was already surrounded by cripples and other pilgrims. That was all right. I simply bowed my head and asked God to bless me as I tried to do good works. I raised my head and found myself looking again at the carving of Bishop Nicholas, focusing on his strong, kind face. Though I knew it was impossible, it seemed as though his eyes, carved in stone to look straight ahead, somehow briefly turned to gaze at me—and did that stone mouth momentarily widen into a smile ? How odd!
    But I had no time to spare on further speculation. Before leaving the inn, I had carefully removed several coins from the pouch sewed into the lining of my cloak—enough money to buy a dozen loaves of bread, some containers of dried dates, and several blankets. At the market, I lined up and bought these things, only to find that I had too much to comfortably carry. I had to leave some of my purchases in the stalls where I bought them, promising to retrieve them the next day. Even so, it was an awkward walk back to the inn with bread loaves tucked under my arms, and the blankets I was balancing on one shoulder spilling over in front of my face. Several people I passed pointed at me and laughed.
    After making a simple supper from a bit of the bread and two of the dates, I waited impatiently in my nasty little room for night to come. During the day, I had seen several ragged nomads in the city. I knew some of them were camped just outside Myra; I’d noticed their patched tents set up by the side of the road when I arrived with the farm family in their wagon. These wanderers, surely, were just like the ones I’d known back in Niobrara—poor, honest families who had no permanent homes because they could not afford them. Instead, they moved from place to place, finding temporary work and never certain which nights there would be food for themselves and their children.
    Finally it got dark. I put on my cloak and gathered up some bread, fruit, and two blankets. I was just able to carry everything. My heart pounded as I slipped out into the street, where I immediately realized I had no idea how to find the nomad tents outside town. There were no streetlights. There were many more buildings than I was used to. Clouds kept me from seeing the stars, which would at least have let me figure out north and south. It took several hours of wrong turns and unexpected dead ends before I finally stumbled out of the city and into the countryside, where I found myself on a road that might or might not have been the one to Niobrara.
    No matter; the clouds shifted and there was enough moonlight for me to see tents, tattered ones, and I knew the people sleeping in them must be desperately poor. Stealthily, I approached the nomad camp. My gift-giving was about to begin!
    Then a dog started barking. I’d forgotten that many of these wanderers kept canine pets, as much for protection as for companionship. This dog had caught my scent, and, of course, did not understand I was coming to give his owners presents rather than rob them. People who’d been sleeping in the tents jumped up, many of them shouting. The first dog kept barking, and several more joined in the thunderous chorus. There was nothing for me to do but turn and run. As I did, I dropped the loaves of bread, which were long and thin, and then I lost my grip on the blankets as I dashed madly through the darkness back toward the city. I arrived at the inn without the