“Yes, I did last night. I asked Him to help me, and take care of me. And where would I be now if it wasn’t for you?”
“Why, Posey!” cried Ben triumphantly. “Don’t you see that He sent me?”
“Do you think He did?” A sudden seriousness had come into Posey’s face.
“Of course. I know it. Why, once when I was a little boy I had a bow and arrow. One day I shot my arrow away so far I couldn’t find it, though I hunted and hunted. Finally I knelt right down in the grass and asked God to help me find my arrow; and do you believe me, when I opened my eyes the first thing I saw was my arrow, only a little way from me. Perhaps if you had asked God to help you before he would have done so.”
“But,” persisted Posey, “sometimes it doesn’t help people any when they do pray. There was a woman in Horsham whose daughter was sick this summer, and she had folks come and pray for her to get well, but she died all the same.”
As she was speaking Ben drew out a handsome pocketknife. “Isn’t that knife a dandy?” he asked, holding it out in his hand. “Five blades, all the very best steel, and the handle inlaid. When I was seven years old my Uncle Ben, in Nebraska, that I was named for, sent it to me. Father said I was too little to have such a knife then, that I would be apt to break it, and to cut me with it, so he laid it away till I was older. Well, I wanted it then, and I used to tease and tease father for it, and almost think it was unkind and mean in him to keep my own knife away from me. The day I was ten years old he said:
“‘Ben, here is your knife. If I had given it to you at the first, as you wanted me to, very likely it would by this time be broken or lost, and you might have been badly hurt with it. Now you are old enough to value and use it carefully. And when you look at it remember this, my boy, that God often has to do by us as I have by you—refuse us the thing we ask for because it might hurt us, or because the time has not yet come when we are ready for it. Refuses us simply because He loves us.’”
“Why, Ben!” exclaimed Posey with wide-open eyes, “I never heard anything like that before. And you talk just like a minister.”
“I’m only telling you what my father said. Perhaps because he died so soon afterwards is one reason I’ve always remembered it. And he was good as any minister. I don’t believe there ever was a better father,” and there was a tremble in Ben’s voice.
“Tell me about yourself now; I’ve told you all about myself,” urged Posey.