“GRANDPAPA,” said Sam, as the two walked home together, “isn’t it too
bad about Billy?”
“It certainly is,” replied Grandpapa.
“Something must be done about it,” said Sam; then he walked silently
for a while, thinking very hard. At last he said,—
“Grandpapa, God made me. Did the same man make you?”
“Yes,” replied Grandpapa, “I suppose he did.”
“Don’t you know for certain?” asked Sam, for Grandpapa’s eyes were
smiling hard.
“Oh, yes,” replied Grandpapa, “of course I do.”
“Well, I’ve been thinking it over,” said Sam, “and I’ll tell you what
I’m going to do. I’m going to pray to God every night to make Billy
see.”
“It will be a very good plan,” replied Grandpapa.
“You see I always pray for what I want most at Christmas time,” said
Sam.
“And it comes, doesn’t it?” asked Grandpapa.
“Yes,” replied Sam, “it always comes. I prayed real hard for a pony
last Christmas, and I got one, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” said Grandpapa, his eyes still smiling as he watched the
earnest face of his grandson.
“I asked for a black pony with a star on his forehead, and it came just
exactly right. So, you see,” continued Sam, “that if I ask God every
night to make Billy see, He will be sure to do it.”
“I hope so,” said Grandpapa.
“Why, it wouldn’t be half so hard as it was to hustle around to find
just the kind of pony I asked for.”
“So I should think,” replied Grandpapa. “Black ponies with white stars
on their foreheads are not so easy to find.”
“No,” said Sam, thoughtfully, “I know it. How long will it be before
Christmas comes, Grandpapa?”
“Only a very short time,—about two weeks.”
“Well, I shall just tell God that He needn’t bother about that
dog-cart,” said Sam, with his determined nod. “I shall tell Him that I
would rather He would make Billy see.”
“That is a good idea, Sam,” said Grandpapa. “I know you would enjoy
having poor Billy see as you do, much more than you would to have your
dog-cart.”
“Yes,” replied Sam with a little sigh, for he had been looking forward
for a long time to the pleasure of driving his pony in a dog-cart. “I
can ride him just as well as not.”
By this time they had reached home, and Sam hurried up the steps, he
was so eager to tell Grandmamma about Billy. Sam’s papa and mamma were
travelling in Europe, with his little sister Anne, and he was staying
with his grandparents. He was so fond of them that he was not at all
lonely.
“I miss Anne very much, and I should like to see Papa and Mamma,” he
had remarked to his nurse Mary one day; “but grandpapas and grandmammas
let you do a great many more things than papas and mammas do.”
“Oh, you mustn’t say that,” Mary had replied.
“Mary,” Sam had said very earnestly, “how would you like to be spanked
with a hair-brush?”
Mary had made no reply to this argument; and Sam, in response to her
silence, had said with the positive air of one who has had experience,—
“Well, then!”
On this day Sam found his grandmamma seated in her sunny sewing-room,
and he was in such a hurry to tell her all about Billy that he gave her
a very confused idea of the matter. The fire and Jack and the little
blind boy became so mixed up in his story that it was some time before
she understood the case.
Now Sam’s grandmamma was just exactly as nice for a grandmamma as his
grandpapa was for a grandpapa, and Sam loved one just as well as the
other. “The only difference is that Grandmamma was never a little boy
like me, same as Grandpapa was,” Sam used to say.
“We must see what can be done for the poor child,” said Grandmamma when
Sam had finished his story.
Then Sam told his plan about asking God to make Billy see, and
Grandmamma thought it an excellent plan, only that perhaps it couldn’t
be brought about by Christmas, because the time was very near.
“But don’t you see, Grandmamma,” said Sam, “that if God doesn’t have to
hunt around for the dog-cart, it will be a great deal easier to make
Billy see?”
So, when Sam went to bed that night, he said his simple prayer in this
way,—
“Oh, dear God, you needn’t bother about that dog-cart, if you will
only make poor Billy see as I do; and please take care of Papa and
Mamma, and don’t let the ship tip over; and take care of Grandpapa and
Grandmamma too, and make Sam a good boy.”
“You haven’t prayed for your little sister,” said Grandmamma, as Sam’s
prayer came to a sudden end.
“Oh, Anne sleeps with Nora, she’s all right,” replied Sam, confidently.