A Soldier's Son

by Maude Mary Butler

Carol had not been long at Mandeville before he became almost as well acquainted with the villagers as his cousins. He frequently accompanied the three little girls and the second nurse, when they were deputed to carry a basket of good things to any house in the village where there was need. In this way he became acquainted with the village shoemaker, Mr. Higgs, who, in his younger days, had also acted as verger at the church. He explained to Carol the "rheumatiz" was so bad in his legs he hadn't been able to walk to church for months. He was often to be seen sitting at the open cottage door in the summer evenings, with an open Bible on his knees, his hands folded on it, for the print was too small for his failing eyesight.

Carol was thoughtful as he walked home. When Mrs. Mandeville paid her usual visit to his bedroom in the evening, she found him sitting up in bed, waiting for her. He was always awake when she came, but since she had desired him not to read in bed he never had a book in his hand. So often he greeted her with the words, "Auntie, I have been thinking."

"Well, darling, what have you been thinking about to-night?" she asked before he spoke, well knowing from his attitude that he had been thinking either of some pleasing or some perplexing subject.

"I have been thinking of something I can do, Auntie, if you will let me. It is only a very little thing, but if we do not begin with little things, we shall not be able some day to do big things, shall we? I so often think about Jesus when he was twelve years old, he said, 'I must be about my Father's business.' I am twelve years old, and God is my Father, too. I want to be about His business. When I was talking to old Mr. Higgs this morning, he told me he cannot walk to church now, and his eyes are so bad he cannot see to read the Bible. I thought I would like to go sometimes and read it to him, and help him to understand it. Would you let me, Auntie dear? It is such a little thing."

"Why, of course, dear; there can be no reason why you should not, if you wish to. I don't think Uncle Raymond can have any possible objection. Anyway, if I give you permission, that will be sufficient, will it not?"

"Oh, yes, Auntie; thank you so very much. May I go every Sunday evening?"

"Yes, dear; and perhaps it may not be such a little thing as you think."

Mrs. Mandeville thought of her own two boys. How different Carol was!

Neither of them would have dreamed of doing such a thing. "But," she mused, "his long illness has changed him."

"Auntie, I often try to picture Jesus in his humble home at Nazareth. I wish we knew more. When he returned with Joseph and Mary after the visit to the Temple, and was always obedient to them, I sometimes wonder if they kept him back from going about his Father's business, because they did not understand; and if he played on the hillsides with the other village boys, and no one knew until he was a man, that he was Jesus the Christ."