Blind Tim and Other Christmas Stories
9781465685797
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
Already the room had become comparatively quiet. The bustle of closing Sunday School as the children were hastening to the door was succeeded by a surprising stillness. The teachers were now busy setting the room in order. Miss Merton was just about to take down the big picture roll, from which she had been teaching a juvenile class, when she heard a piping voice. Turning, she saw the pale, hump-backed blind boy who had joined her class some weeks since, with his cousin Louise, who led him. “What do you want, Tim?” she asked kindly. “Please, ma’am, can I feel o’ that picture you was telling about?” “Oh, certainly,” exclaimed Miss Merton, touched by the appeal. She directed the thin little hand. “It’s a big picture,” he said. “Where’s the sheep?” The teacher directed his hand across each portion of the picture. The lesson had been about the Good Shepherd, and Tim insisted on every detail. As the parable was rehearsed and his hand was directed to the hills, the flocks, the big sheep in the foreground, the crook, and the Shepherd, his satisfaction grew. A sigh of pleasure escaped him. By the time that the story was done, all the teachers stood grouped about, for all were touched at the spectacle of the crippled boy. In the few weeks that he had attended, Tim had become greatly interested. A new world had opened to his blind eye. And yet he had not so far learned to bow his head at the times of prayer. For Tim had been taught none of the actions that accompany Christian ways. He was a saloon-keeper’s son. Out on the street corner, the teachers and several pupils stood waiting for the street car. For this was an afternoon Sunday School at the little chapel in the heart of the great city. North and south along the street rose the stone fronts of the many houses, red, yellow, gray, brown, some new and some weather-beaten. They were interspersed here and there with a grocery, a delicatessen, a shop, or a saloon. The side streets were lined with pretty, cheerful cottages or tall, flat buildings—not very flat to the eye, for they were narrow and thin, even four stories high. But so they were called in the city. The little crippled figure led by pretty Louise, with her long curls, her handsome coat and hat, was trudging along the concrete walls. Now and then a carriage passed, or an auto whirred by. At last the proper car came banging to a stop, and the group of teachers climbed in, to be carried swiftly to their several destinations.
