CHILDREN,” said Miss Ware to her little band of scholars, “Susie Dana is coming to school next Monday. She is lame, and I want you to be kind and thoughtful toward her. She does not show her lameness until she commences to walk, and then you can see that one of the fat little legs is longer than the other, which makes her limp. So do not watch her as she walks. Be sure not to run against her in your plays, and don’t shut her out from them because she cannot run and jump as you do, but choose, some of the time, plays in which she can take part. Remember, I make this rule: When you leave the room at recess or after school, wait, every one of you, in your places till she has passed out; then she will not be jostled or hurt in any way. Her lameness is a hard trial for a little girl. She would like to run and dance as well as any of you, and I do hope you will feel for her, and at least not make her burden heavier. How many, now, will promise to try to make her happy?”
Every hand was instantly raised, and the children’s clear, honest eyes met their teacher’s with a look which was a promise.
You have read stories, no doubt, of lame, blind or deformed children, and poor ones in patched clothes, who met treatment from others harder to endure than their poverty, privation or pain. Sometimes their schoolmates have been foolish and cruel enough to shun them, cast them out from their plays and pleasures, brush roughly against them, talk about, and even ridicule, them. But I hope it is not often so. In this case it was by far the reverse.
These children remembered their pledge, and they made Susie so happy that she almost forgot her lameness. She was a cheerful, pleasant, good little girl, and her schoolmates, who had begun by pitying her and trying to help her, soon loved to be with her.
“May I sit with Susie, Miss Ware?” became a frequent request.
“Susie dear, here’s a cake I’ve brought you,” one would say at recess.
“Take half my apple, Susie.”
NOTHING SHALL HURT YOU.