The story came to me early in my writing career. I visited a nursing home, looking for a Christmas story for a small magazine I was writing for. The magazine had a circulation of 1.6 people. At the nursing home, I met a woman named Shirley.

“There were three of us,” Shirley began.

Three young women, in their twenties. Three department store clerks. All three mothers. The year was 1942. The place was South Carolina.

America was in rough shape. The Depression had only been over a few years. The world was at war. Everyone’s husband was shipping off to fight Hitler. There were going to be a lot of widows in this country.

The three clerks lived on tight budgets. Enlisted-man pay was garbage. Their kids would not be getting much for Christmas this year, because money was short. The three women barely earned enough at their jobs to afford much more than their children’s supper and clothing. A lot of beans and weenies were consumed in their households.

It was December. The department store was packed. They were working overtime. Customers were Christmas shopping.

One of the three young women noticed a boy wandering the store. He was maybe 12. He was behaving conspicuously. The kid had something hidden beneath his jacket. Something bulky.

The boy was shoplifting.

“Should we call the store detective?” said Shirley.

“No,” said Eleanor. “Look at his shoes, they’re full of holes. We can’t get that poor boy arrested.”

“What should we do?” said Ethel.

They didn’t know what to do. So they followed him. Well, technically only Shirley followed him. She tailed him through town. She followed him home. She discovered that he’d stolen a dictionary. And also, a cookbook. Betty Crocker. Along with a couple of baby dolls.

Shirley watched the boy enter a rundown shotgun house. She watched him climb dry rotted stairs into the squalid dwelling, as his little siblings swarmed him with hugs. Shirley, detective extraordinaire, had no doubt who the shoplifted gifts were for.

She reported her findings back to the group.

When they heard this, the three female clerks put their heads together and came up with a plan. They decided to do something big. Something wild. When their store paychecks came in, they cashed them, and all three women bought gifts for the boy and his siblings.

But the real gift came on Christmas Eve night, when the three vigilantes deposited these gifts on the boy’s dry rotted porch. Shirley trotted up to the door and rang the doorbell. Then she ran like heck.

The door opened.

First, a father emerged onto the porch. Tall and lean and underweight. Then a mother, who was even skinnier than her husband. Then came the passel of kids, who all looked underfed.

The children tore open the wrapped gifts, right there on the porch. And across the street, three department store clerks were smiling so largely their cheeks were sore.

The 94-year-old woman smiled at me. She was sitting in a wheelchair, parked beside her nursing-home window. Her ancient hands were folded in her lap. Her walls, adorned with photos of children and grandchildren.

“Was that the kind of Christmas story you were looking for, young man?” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Exactly the kind.”