Willie Flint was a little Houston boy, six years of age. He was a
beautiful child, with long golden curls and wondering, innocent blue
eyes. His father was a respectable, sober citizen, who owned four or
five large business buildings on Main Street. All day long Mr. Flint
toiled among his renters, collecting what was due him, patching up
broken window panes, nailing down loose boards and repairing places
where the plastering had fallen off. At noon he would sit down upon
the stairs of one of his buildings and eat the frugal dinner he had
brought, wrapped up in a piece of newspaper, and think about the hard
times. Gay and elegantly attired clerks and business men would pass up
and down the stairs, but Mr. Flint did not envy them. He lived in a
little cottage near the large trash pile known as "Tomato Can
Heights," on one of the principal residence streets of Houston. He was
perfectly contented to live there with his wife and little boy Willie,
and eat his frugal but wholesome fare and draw his $1,400 per month
rent for his buildings. He was industrious and temperate, and hardly a
day passed that he did not raise the rent of some of his offices, and
lay by a few more dollars for a rainy day.
One night Mr. Flint came home ill. He had been pasting up some cheap
green wall paper on an empty stomach, or rather on the wall of one of
his stores without eating, and it had not agreed with him. He went to
bed flushed with fever, muttering: "God help my poor wife and child!
What will become of them now?"
Mr. Flint sent Willie to the other side of the room and drew a roll of
greenbacks from under his pillow.
"Take this," he said to his wife, "to the bank and deposit it. There
is only $900 there. Some of my renters have not paid me yet, and five
of them want awnings put up at the windows. He who sent the ravens to
feed Elijah will provide for us. Come by the baker's and get a nickel
loaf of bread, and then hurry back and pray."
Willie was pretending to play with his Noah's ark, by charging the
animals for rent and water, and adding the amounts on his slate, but
he heard what his father said.