Once upon a time there was a little girl who had no one left in the world. All she owned were the clothes she wore and a small piece of bread in her hand. But she had a heart as warm as a little stove.
So the girl walked out across the fields. There she met an old man who said softly, 'I am so hungry.' The girl looked at her bread, broke it in two, and gave him the bigger half. 'Enjoy it,' she said, and smiled.
A little further on, a child sat by the path with freezing ears. 'Take my hat,' said the girl, and put it on the child's head. Then came a child without a jacket — so she gave her jacket away. And to the next child who was cold, she gave her little skirt.
At last the girl came to a dark forest, and one more child asked for her little shirt. She thought: 'It is dark, no one can see me, surely I can give it away.' And there she stood with nothing left at all — nothing but her warm heart.
Then something wonderful happened: the stars in the sky began to fall. But they did not fall like rain — they fell like bright, glittering silver coins, soft and quiet into the grass. And suddenly the girl was wearing a little shirt finer than any before.
The girl gathered up the star money, and from that day on she had enough for all her life. And if you see the stars twinkling tonight, remember: perhaps one of them is practicing to become a coin.
