A hot Italian sun beat mercilessly on the handful of workers in the rocky field. Mopping the sweat off their well-tanned faces, they labored on, their hands burrowing into the soil, skillfully setting the delicate vines in place and tying them tenderly with wisps of straw onto thin sticks. But it was so hot in the glaring sun! Gradually, one by one, they began edging away toward the shade, till a single girl remained in the field, her sturdy, young body bent firmly over her task, her swift fingers deftly caressing the vines and sealing them into place. Now and then, as a lock of her black hair fell across her eyes, a quick movement of the hand pushed it back into place under a white kerchief - and then immediately back to work! "Mary," called a friend, "come on in out of the hot sun. It's much more comfortable here!"

Mary looked up. "But no work was ever done in the shade!" she laughed. "Since when have you all become afraid of the sun?"

"We're not afraid. We just prefer to wait till it sets lower in the sky!" retorted a young man.

"Cowards!" the girl in the field chided. "The sun is God's gift to us! You'll never have any wine this winter if you hide in the shade!"

A peasant woman laughed heartily. "Some girl, that Mary Mazzarello! She can beat anyone of us in the field, and that goes for the men too! No use calling her. She'll stay there till her line is done and then go on to ours!"

"Mary," teased a young fellow resting under a tree, "did you hear that? Is it true you can beat us working on the farm?"

"On the farm and anywhere!" came the decided answer.

"She's right," interrupted a young woman. "You've never done a day's work equal to hers."

"No use teasing her, lad," broke in Mr. Mazzarello, going out to join his daughter in the field. "Ever since she was just a tiny thing of a girl, she has never given in to anybody. Her mother and I know too well!"

But as Mary bent back to her work and the perspiration trickled freely down her cheeks, her thoughts were far from boasting, even far from the friends that called out to her from the shade. Her eyes were fixed on the tiny vines that seemed to look to her hands for assistance in their first moment of life. Those hands, roughened and cut by pebbles and briars, were meant to be helpful hands, to labor for others - hands of tender mercy to comfort and heal, to lift and strengthen. She was eighteen now, and, though most girls at eighteen think only of love and marriage and a warm hearth and children nestling in their arms, such thoughts seemed alien to her mind. Much as she loved her people, their priceless heritage of Faith and simplicity, much as she admired the sincere and well-intentioned approaches of the young men of Mornese whom her mother made her find every opportunity to meet, she could not think of herself as a housewife. She felt there was another call for her, other tasks than a housewife's reserved for her. What it might be, who could tell? Father Pestarino, the pastor of Mornese, who had guided her in her spiritual life ever since her First Communion, would tell her in good time when prayer and meditation had revealed God's will to him. Till then, she would labor, as peasant among her people, yet not entirely one of them.

The work grew tedious. Impatiently she tugged at handful of tendrils, which refused to fit the contour of her slender fingers. They broke, and petulantly she flung them aside. She paused. No, she must not lose her patience, even in the hot sun. Had she not promised these hours of broiling heat to the Lord who had come to her that morning in Holy Communion? She must check these outbursts, even if only as reparation for the many girls of her age who lived in the wicked cities beyond the citadel of hills that protected Mornese and who, Father Pestarino said, often bartered away their souls for false pleasure and tinsel glory.

Poor deluded children! Maybe someday in the future she might be able to help them. But then she blushed at the thought as she always did when it came to her in the hours of prayer. What could she do for the Lord - she, an ignorant farm girl who could neither read nor write even her own name? Yes, of course, she knew her catechism thoroughly - she had beaten all the children of the village in that years ago, much to the joy of her parents, who bragged openly of their daughter's remarkable memory. And she could do sums faster on her fingers than the village clerk could on paper, even big sums for the patron of nearby farms. But with all that, she was still an illiterate peasant and would have to be content with just menial tasks in God's work.

Yet, what had Father Pestarino told her - God doesn't need the learned ones or the earthy ones of the world? Why, in that case even she might be able to work for God. It might not be much but it would be for the Lord. Her heart leaped for joy! Those hands could work for God!

Mornese was a "death town." The jolly villagers who loved music and merriment and the open fields now sealed themselves and their children behind barred doors and boarded windows, praying that the grim specter of death would not demand a victim among them. Typhoid took over the town!

The deserted cobblestone street rang dismally with the clatter of heavy wooden shoes, as a young woman, clutching a crying boy by the hand, hastened through the crooked lanes of houses.

"Oh, Mary, what are we going to do?" the child whines. "Mama and Papa are sick, and my big brother is almost dying, and there's no one to take care of us!"

"Hush, hush," comforted the girl. "I told you not to worry."

"Will you stay with us?"

"Of course as long as necessary. And I'll take care of my little cousins."

Mary ran up the stone steps and pushed open the door to find a bedlam of crying children, soiled dishes, and her aunt and uncle lying helplessly on their straw mattresses. Quickly and efficiently, Mary cooked a hot meal, washed and put the children to bed, and fed the sick with her own hands, all the while uttering a thousand gentle phrases that brought comfort and hope to the stricken family. Then she began the impossible task of cleaning a week's accumulation of clutter.

Mary proved an angel of mercy to her aunt and uncle. Her soft words and the tender touch of her hand eased the burning brows of her feverish patients, promised assurance of health, and instilled a deep, comforting resignation to the Divine Will such as they never before experienced. The little ones took to her as to a mother and clustered about to hear her tell of the Lord that loved and cared for then. Day and night she would not spare herself, washing, cooking, and comforting. She would only grasp tiny moments of sleep between tasks.

Within a week her aunt and uncle were able to get on their feet again care for their family. Hearts bubbling over in gratitude, they could only show their thanks through eyes brimming with tears. Mary accepted it all with that humility and gentleness that characterized her entire life of mercy, and then she made up her bundle of clothing to return to her mother.

As soon as she stepped into the house, Mrs. Mazzarello noticed the change in her daughter. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes sunken, her sturdy body broken by the long hours of work and sleepless vigils. Mary tried to smile away her mother's fears, but, admitting she needed rest, went immediately to bed. Within a few hours, she was in the throes of a consuming typhoid fever. She tossed about in burning heat, trembling and perspiring alternately. She raved in delirium for hours, reliving the days of exhaustion she had gone through, muttering prayers for her little brothers and sister as though danger awaited them. Brief respites brought a few precious hours of rest. But the relentless fever hungrily burned every ounce of strength out of her tired body. She hovered on the brink of eternity for a few days. Then her native strength rallied. Longer hours of rest and healthful nourishment from the hands of her overjoyed mother restored the color to her blood-drained face. The fever ebbed away.

Father Pestarino, who had anxiously watched her through the days of crisis, brought her Communion every day, knowing that it would be her only comfort through the long hours of painful illness.

The Mazzarello home now became a small oasis for the Mornese townsfolk, who had heard of Mary's heroic venture into the typhoid-stricken village and had nervously watched her fight with death. They flocked to see her. Her many friends spent long hours in her company, marveling at her infinite patience, as they remembered the sturdy young woman who would yield to neither heat nor fatigue in the blistering fields, and now saw the thin, frail girl that the consuming typhoid had left behind.

Mary was not blind to reality. She knew she would never again be able to work in the fields. Two months of fever and illness had destroyed her iron constitution. She would have to be content with even smaller and more menial tasks now. And yet, she reflected as she sat in the warm October sun, maybe it was all for the better. Maybe this was what she had been waiting for all these twenty years - maybe she and Father Pestarino would now know what God wanted her to do.

Of course, it could never be much now. But, as long as it was for God she would do - and love it!

Mary was enjoying her autumn stroll through the country. Everything was so beautiful in late October; the woods ablaze with bright masses of red and yellow leaves set against a deep blue sky, the soft winds breathing aimlessly over the rolling hills and setting the dry bough alive with music. Certainly, a Great Artist had planned this all out, this pageant of splendor, and had lent it the quickening force of life that seemed to speak to her of the Eternal Beauty.

She was convalescing now, and the long walks, mostly spent in spontaneous prayer, did her a great deal of good. Over the hilltop she strayed, kicking up the leaves in splashes of gold. But she stopped in surprise - that building set in the midst of the field! Where had it come from? And those Nuns playing with the village girls, who were they? She rubbed her eyes fiercely. Surely she was not delirious again! She took her hands from her face and saw... nothing, just the bare field swept by the wind. The building and the Sisters and the children were all gone.

Mary turned back. What had she seen? A vision? Impossible. Her religious training had always been very earthly, practical, passed on to her by a plain, hard working priest who had little trust in visionaries and dreams. And yet, so many things had come up of late, little things that fit into a pattern. Her illness, so abruptly changing her life - her twenty years of waiting for God to speak - her growing attachment to the care and teaching of children were they accidents? And then Father Pestarino kept telling her that Don Bosco, the great priest of Turin who had erected schools for poor boys and founded a religious congregation, was interested in the Immaculate Conception Society of Mornese. Did it mean anything?

She sat under a tree to rest. The Immaculate Conception Society was a wonderful thing, she knew. Yet, it was so unstable, more a foretaste of the future than an existing reality. Fifteen girls of Mornese, all of them anxious to leave the world and live the religious life but drawn to no particular order, desirous of living at home with their families, while bound by their vows, and benefiting the village children, that was the Immaculate Conception Society to which she belonged, but it would not last forever that way. Father Pestarino kept dropping hints to that effect, always bringing up the name of Don Bosco and his work of education. Certainly, that meant something! Mary took up her Rosary. She was dizzy with thought. She needed prayer.

Back in Turin, miles from Mornese, Don Bosco was also deeply engrossed in thought. A certain "dream" puzzled him, because he knew it was one of those "Dreams" that became the signposts of his ministry. He had strangely found himself in the midst of a crowd of girls in one of Turin's great squares. For the most part they were poor - just the tattered homespun dresses, bare feet and unkempt hair of the peasant folk and the city slums. They rushed to him and tugged at his cassock.

"Please come to us!" they pleaded. "We need you too!" Their thin faces, outstretched arms, and moist eyes begged as no orator could do. Then they faded into the nothingness from which they had emerged.

Girls? Was he called also to work for girls?

Don Bosco fingered the letter he had just received from Father Pestarino. He read again of the Immaculate Conception Society - fifteen young women, already partly trained in religious life, anxious to work for girls, poor girls. Some hand was shaping the future!

He took up his pen and wrote to Mornese: "I shall come with my boys for a few days. And I would like to meet and speak to the Immaculate Conception Society."