Billy Boy was in a very serious frame of mind; in fact, he was
quite gloomy and dejected. To be sure, his side hadn’t won the
cricket match, but that was scarcely enough to account for his
present state of feeling. He had lost before, and usually with
pretty good grace. But to-day no sympathy appealed to him, no
cheerful encouragement won so much as a shadow of a smile. The
hopeful, merry, happy Billy Boy had entirely disappeared.
Mother, whose experience with little boys had
warned her of occasions when it was a case of
“do-better-or-do-nothing-at-all,” as Hans says in the Grimm
story, waited for the situation to develop, and at last the
silence was broken. Slowly, seriously, solemnly, Billy Boy said
it:
“Mother, God was on the side of the bad boys, and they won. You
see, we fellows thought we would try awfully hard and not get
mad or cheat or say bad words. And not one fellow did. And the
other fellows did--like fury. I guess they swore. And they won
and we were licked. God was on their side all right, and it’s
not fair.”
Ordinary comfort and explanation availed nothing. The fact
remained. The faithful little band that had tried to do right
had been beaten by the rough little crowd that didn’t care
anything at all about it. God was on the side of might--not
right. This was self-evident and did not admit of explanation;
and who wants comfort for injustice? Not Billy Boy. After a
while father came in, and before Billy Boy saw him, mother had
presented the case.
He thought carefully a moment. Then his cheerful voice was heard.
“Well, my boy, I hear you won out to-day.”
“Well, then,” in a voice of awful solemnity, “you heard wrong,
’cause we didn’t; we were licked.”
“Oh, but I heard that there were two contests; which did you
win?”
“Why, I don’t know what you mean, father.”
“Mother told me about it. She told me you lost the match, but
you won the big, important thing; you didn’t beat the other
fellows, but you beat yourselves, and conquered all the anger
and unfairness and bad language. Congratulations, old fellow!
You won out and I’m proud of you.”
Billy Boy’s face was slowly undergoing a change. It was growing
once more interested, happy, hopeful. “Why, that’s so, dad,” he
said joyously, after a minute; “I didn’t see that. And God was
on our side after all, wasn’t He?”
“Greater is he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a
city,” said the father, with a smile.
That night when Billy Boy said his prayers, this is the
way he ended his petition: “And please, God, excuse me
for the way I thought about you this afternoon. I didn’t
understand.”--_Congregationalist._
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