The Master with the Immigrant Greengrocer

The Baha'i Stories Blog preserves, in one of its small posts on the Master's New York days, an encounter at a Greek greengrocer's stall not far from the hotel where the Master was staying in late April 1912.

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The Master, on a morning walk with one of His attendants, had paused at the stall and had selected a small basket of figs. The greengrocer, on recognising the Master's face from the newspaper photographs of the previous days, refused to take payment. He bowed. He pressed the figs into the attendant's hands. He insisted, in his thickly accented English, that it would be a great honour to make the gift to the holy man and that the holy man should permit it without discussion.

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The Master, watching the small exchange, smiled. He took the figs. He thanked the greengrocer warmly. Then, instead of walking away, He invited the greengrocer to sit on the small bench at the side of the stall. He asked the greengrocer's name, the village in Greece he had come from, the names of his children. He listened for several minutes to the answer. He shook the greengrocer's hand at the parting. He pressed into the greengrocer's other hand a coin somewhat larger than the basket of figs would have cost.

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> Friends do not pay each other. Friends exchange.

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The phrase, paraphrased in the blog post, gave the small explanation. The Master would not pay the greengrocer for the figs because the greengrocer had refused payment as a gift between friends. The Master also would not deprive the greengrocer of the small income that had been quietly forfeited. The coin was therefore not payment but the returning gift between friends — a small exchange of substance rather than the shopkeeper's transaction the greengrocer had wished to set aside.

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