The Farmer's Market on Maple Street

Every Saturday morning, Rosa Gutierrez set up her stand at the Maple Street farmers' market in Topeka, Kansas. She sold tamales — handmade, wrapped in corn husks, stuffed with pork and green chile. Three dollars each. But Rosa had a habit that made her husband shake his head. Whenever someone counted out exact change with trembling hands, whenever a young mother with two kids on her hip hesitated at the price, Rosa would slip an extra tamale into the bag. Sometimes two. "Para tu familia," she would say quietly.

Her neighbor vendors noticed. The honey seller started leaving a jar at Rosa's stand each week. The apple farmer set aside his best Honeycrisps for her. The woman selling cut flowers brought Rosa a bouquet every Saturday — no charge. By October, Rosa's little folding table was surrounded by gifts she never asked for.

"I don't understand it," she told her pastor one Sunday. "I give away tamales and somehow come home with more than I left with."

Her pastor smiled. "That's the economy of the Kingdom, Rosa."