Little Dottie Mayfair who was spending the summer at her aunt’s home, came running down the broad, sunshiny walk, swinging a crimson tulip slowly to and fro in her hand. “Here’s another big, lovely day,” she said stretching her arms out to the blue sky, “and what shall I do with it?” She soon found out as we shall see if we follow her movements.
By this time she had reached the gate, and pushing it open, stood still a moment, looking up and down the road. “Nobody coming, nobody at all ‘cept just two yellow butterflies and an old fat bee. I can’t stop to play with you. I’m going for a visit to that brown house over there. Come with me, pretty butterflies.”
But the butterflies floated off in another direction, so Dottie had to go alone. Everything was very quiet about the brown house, and when she knocd at the half-open door there was no answer.
“They couldn’t be so lazy as to be asleep now, when everything else is so much awake everywhere. I guess I’ll peep in.”
At first she thought the darkened room was empty, but presently she saw a man sitting by the bed with his face in his hands. She coughed a little, but he did not stir.
“I wonder if he could be a preacher making up his sermon?” said she to herself. “Then I wouldn’t like to disturb him, but it was Sunday yesterday, and he wouldn’t be beginning so soon again. I’ll just ask him where Johnny is, and then run away.”
She opened the door wider and let in a broad band of sunlight which streaked across the face of a little dimpled baby lying on the bed. The man lifted his heavy head, and said roughly, though in a whisper, “Keep away, will you? There ain’t nothin’ you can say as’ll do any good.” Then when he saw who the visitor was, “Oh, is it you? This ain’t no place for the likes o’you, Miss.”
“What is it?” asked Dottie in an awed voice, touching the little face on the pillow, so familiar and yet so strange. “Is he—asleep?”
“He’s dead,” said the man dropping his head back in its old place.
Dottie was silent for a while, and then said softly, “I was bringing him this beautiful red flower, ‘cause he was in such admiration for them the other day. May I give it to him now?”
The man watched her put it in the chubby hands, and then bend over and kiss him, while her tears fell fast on his white shirt—much whiter than it had often been in his lifetime, dear little fellow.
“He got through giving his message soon, didn’t he?” she said.
“What?”
“Why, you know, the preacher said yesterday that God had a message for everybody to give. Big men like you, and children like me, and even tiny ones like Johnny. Every day when we’re alive He ‘spects us to be giving His message, and by-and-by He’ll send for us when He’s ready for us to stop.”
“I tell you, I don’t believe none o’ that. There ain’t no God—leastways, if there is, He don’t care nuthin’ for folks like me.”
“Oh, He does. He loves you dearly.”
“Then why did He take away all I had? The Lord knows I’m wild and wicked enough, and the only thing as kept me straight a bit was thinkin’ as the little lad mustn’t be ashamed of his father. Now I don’t care what happens.”
“I can’t explain it very well,” said Dottie with a sigh. “But wouldn’t you rather God would lend him to you for a little while than never at all?”
He hesitated. “I guess so.”
“‘Specially when you can be with him forever an’ ever by-and-by. I think it will be nice to have friends in heaven, don’t you?”
“There’ll be two of them there then, ‘cause she was always a-talkin’ that sort, and livin’ it too, for the matter o’ that. ‘Twarn’t no sham business with her. If there is such a place, she’ll be there, and so’ll the boy; but where’ll I be?”
“You must get ready to go too,” said Dottie earnestly. “Maybe our Father saw you weren’t ready, and so He sent Johnny to remind you. I guess that was all the message Johnny had. And you will listen to it, won’t you, ‘cause Jesus’ll be very, very disappointed if you don’t ‘cept His invitation?”
There was a long silence in the room after that. Then the man rose to his feet, and laying his big brown hand on the baby’s head, said slowly, “I will, I promise ye.”
With his head bowed and with many sobs, he owned his stubborn sinfulness before God, and thanked Him for sending the Lord Jesus to save him.
Reader, are you ready?
“At the heart’s door, the Saviour’s knocking,
At the heart’s door, locked in sin;
Can’t you hear Him, gently knocking?
Open the door, and let Him in.”
ML 07/11/1954