“Everybody got somethin’ but me, and I never had a darned thing. I thought the baby in the stable would bring me suthin’; I asked him this mornin’ would he.”
This was the sobbing reply of the little ragged boy who cried as if his heart would break, while Nellie tried to comfort him. In the multiplicity of her cares she had forgotten him, and she felt so grieved and sorry, until an idea struck her. There were a few whispered words to Wallie, whose hands were full, and then turning to Bennie, she asked what he wanted most.
“Some lines and some shoes,” he said, and glancing at his thin, worn boots, Nellie replied, “Poor boy, you do need shoes, and you shall have them to-morrow, while the lines,—” she turned appealingly to Wallie, who, after a momentary struggle, laid the lines in her hand. “Yes,” she continued, “you shall have the lines to-night. Wallie gives them to you, and is sorry for the naughty words he said to you the other day. Now, shake hands and be friends with him.”
Such generosity and self-denial were more than Bennie could comprehend, and he stood staring blankly at Wallie, while his lip quivered and the tears rained down his cheek.
“Git out! Yer only foolin’,” he said, while the glimmer of a smile showed round his mouth.
Wallie had felt like crying himself, but at the sight of tears in another he assumed a show of manliness and answered, “No, I ain’t foolin’. I want you to have ’em. Auntie can knit me some more. They are three yards long. Look!” and with a swift movement he threw them across Ben’s neck, exclaiming, “Get up there! Go ’long!”
Quick as thought Ben started off on a brisk canter, with sundry little squeals and kicking up of heels, and before the astonished rector could stop it the two boys had made the entire circuit of the church, one as driver and the other as horse! It was an unprecedented thing, but Bennie knew no better, and Wallie would not admit that he was sorry. It was the greatest fun, he said, and Ben was the nicest kind of a horse, because he squealed and kicked up so good! To Bennie that race was, perhaps, the best part of the festival, though the next day was to him the real Christmas, the white day of his life, which he never forgot. There was much cheer and festivity at the Morgan house that Christmas time, for many guests were staying there, and Nellie, as the mistress, had numberless duties to perform, but she did not forget her promise to little Ben, and just before the bell at St. Luke’s rang for the morning service, the Morgan carriage stopped at the wretched house where the Hewitts lived, and Nellie entered the cold, dirty room, laden with gifts for Bennie. There was a warm suit of Wallie’s half worn clothes, a pair of shoes, with mittens and tippet, a book of pictures, and a horse on wheels, which, possibly, pleased the little boy more than all the rest. He was very happy and proud in his new clothes, and when the next Sunday came and Nellie Morgan joined her class in Sunday school Bennie was the first one she saw, his face all aglow with excitement and eager expectancy. Forlorn and despised as he was, he was no ordinary child, and the quickness with which he comprehended her and the aptness of his replies and questionings surprised and interested Miss Nellie, who felt that she had known the child for years, so fast did he gain upon her love during that first hour of teaching. Regularly every Sunday after that, through sunshine and storm, Bennie was in his place, his lesson always perfect, and his brain full of the puzzling thoughts which had come to him during the week, and which only Miss Nellie could explain. Of the child Jesus he was never tired of hearing, and the story of Bethlehem was told him again and again until he knew it by heart, and prompted both Miss Morgan and his sister if, in telling it, they deviated ever so little from the original. Of Calvary and its agony he did not care to hear. There was something horrible to him in that three hours’ suffering, and the darkened sky and opening graves, and he would far rather think of Christ as a little child sleeping on a mound of hay, or playing by the door of his home in Nazareth.
“Seems if I got nearer to Him, and He was sorrier for me when I’m cold and hungry and father licks me so hard for nothin’,” he said, and his prayers were mostly said to the baby boy he had first heard about, and we have no doubt that God listened with love and sympathy for the poor child who sometimes asked so touchingly, “Was you ever hungry, dear Jesus, and be flogged and cuffed as I am when I hain’t done nothin’, and did the snow come into your winder and cover the front of your bed, and make you so cold at night?”
At first Bennie’s prayers were mostly interrogatories of the Lord with regard to His early life; but as he learned more from the faithful Nellie, he came at last to ask for what he wanted in his own peculiar way, and God, who always hears and answers the prayer of faith like Bennie’s, heard and answered him, as we shall see in our next chapter.