GRACIE’S MISTAKE.
MRS. HARRIET A. CHEEVER.
“Just think, mamma! grandpa Gray gave me a five dollar bill just as he was getting into the cars to go home, and said I might do just what I pleased with it; wasn’t that splendid?”
“Yes, Gracie, what shall you do with it?”
“Don’t know yet, shall have to think;” and Gracie flattened her nose against the window-pane one short moment, the next she exclaimed:
“Oh, see, ma, there goes one of those colored students; do you suppose they ever learn much?”
Something in the child’s tone pained Mrs. Gray, and she answered seriously:
“Just as much as any others; my little girl has yet to learn that any difference in young men that is only skin deep is a very slight difference, and none whatever in the sight of God.”
“Well,” replied the petted child, “I like white folks best, and always shall;” and she gave her pretty head with its fair hair a smart little toss. Before her mother could reply, she asked hastily:
“May I run across the bit of woods and see Jennie Hale a little while?”
Her mother said yes, and the next moment Gracie was skipping along through the “bit of woods” towards the home of her little friend, when all at once she struck her foot against a little stump, bounded into the air for an instant, then fell heavily. There she lay moaning in dreadful pain.
“Oh, dear!” she cried, “I’ve broken my ankle, I know I have, and that horrid Dr. Stuart will have to set it, and he sha’n’t, he sha’n’t! I’ll die if he does! Oh, dear, what shall I do!”
Dr. Frank Bates, a colored student in the medical department of the college for freedmen, close by, was walking slowly along with a book in his hand—a way these students have, somehow, of improving every moment—when he thought he heard a moan. He listened, and sure enough it was a moan, very near, too, and putting the book in his pocket, he soon reached the spot where Gracie was lying.
He was a very tall, strong young man, but tender-hearted and gentle as a woman could be. He knelt beside Gracie, who cried with pain when he tried to lift her.
“There, there,” he crooned pityingly, his great, soft eyes full of compassion; “wait a moment, and Dr. Frank’ll make it all right for poor sissy;” and seeing at once what was the real trouble, he fortunately found a little board, and tearing his bright Madras handkerchief into strips, with what skill he could carefully splintered and bandaged the broken limb; then lifting her firmly in his strong arms, he carried her steadily and safely along to her home.
Grade’s mother, in all her distress at her little girl’s pain, did not forget to thank him warmly for what he had done. Then she added. “Now we will send for Dr. Stuart, and soon have you comfortable, poor little Gracie.”
But to Mrs. Gray’s surprise, Gracie cried out: “Oh no, no, mamma, let Dr. Frank stay; I know my limb is broken and must be set all right; he told me so; but I want Dr. Frank; I’ll be good, only let him stay.”
Turning to the young giant who stood quietly by, Mrs. Gray asked if he dared undertake the case, and understood properly what must be done.
And he proved he did understand perfectly, for not even the famous Dr. Stuart could more carefully or skillfully have done what was needed than did Dr. Frank.
Such friends as they grew to be—the dark-skinned, intelligent young student, and his fair little patient!
One day Gracie said to her father, “Papa, sha’n’t you pay Dr. Frank just as much for what he has done for me as you should any one else?”
Mr. Gray thought a moment, then replied:
“Yes, Gracie, I certainly shall; it is only right; he has earned it as fairly certainly as any one else could have done.”
And what a help and encouragement it was, the handsome sum which Gracie’s grateful papa paid to Dr. Frank one day. But one other day, the great tears stood in Dr. Frank’s fine dark eyes, and he couldn’t say a word for a long time, when Gracie made him a present of her five dollar bill “to buy a book with, to remember her by,” she said child-like; but when he could find his voice again, he said so sadly, that Gracie will never forget it:
“No fear that Dr. Frank will ever forget the first dear white child who ever gave him kind words and dared trust him. I am very, very grateful for dear little sissy’s dollars; but oh, the kind words are the sweetest sounds Dr. Frank has ever heard yet.”
One day Gracie asked her mother if she remembered how proudly she said she should always like white folks best.
“Yes, I remember,” replied her mother.
“So does God,” said Gracie very gently; “but I’ve been praying Him to remember it no more, for what should I have done without my good, kind Dr. Frank?”