The Blind Man
“LOOK at that poor blind man!” said Wendy pityingly.
They had left the home of Joy and Marion, and were now back in the shopping center of the town again. It would soon be time for the shops to shut, and there seemed to be more people about than ever, all intent on getting their shopping done before closing time.
The blind man was standing at a corner that opened from the road where all the shops were. He was leaning against the wall, and carried a tray in front of him on which were boxes of matches, shoelaces and studs. In front of him, on the pavement, sat a small dog. There was a tin on the tray, and into this people dropped pennies as they passed.
Not everyone put a penny into his tin, of course, but most people did. Some stopped and talked to him for a moment, and some bought a box of matches or shoe-laces; but most people just dropped something hurriedly into his tin and passed on.
“Poor man!” said Joan. “It must be terrible to be blind. Fancy not being able to see anything!”
Then a most strange thing happened. An elderly man had dropped something into the tin, something that rang with a different sound from the pennies that went in so frequently. Evidently the blind man noticed a difference, too, for he turned away, lifted his eyeshade, and then looked in the tin for the coin that had just been dropped. When he had found it, he looked at it for a moment with an expression of satisfaction on his face, and then put it in his pocket. Then he put down the eyeshade again, and turned once more to face the busy street.
“That was funny!” said Wendy, very much puzzled. “He looked as if he could see!”
“But that notice on his tray says ‘Totally Blind’,” said Joan. “How could he see if he’s totally blind?”
“Well, didn’t you see what he did? He lifted up the black thing over his eyes and looked in the tin. When he’d found what he wanted, he put it in his pocket. He must be able to see!” insisted Wendy.
“But that’s cheating!” Joan objected.
“Well, let’s stay here and watch. If he does it again, we’ll know he was cheating,” suggested Wendy.
Joan agreed to this, and they stayed where they were, on the other side of the quiet road.
For some time nothing happened. People dropped in pennies, and the man thanked them, and occasionally someone bought a box of matches. And then an elderly woman stopped in front of him.
“Oh, you poor man!” she said. “I think sight is one of the most precious of God’s gifts; and in thankfulness that I’ve still got mine, I’m going to give you something.” She opened her purse, took out something which she put in his tin, and then hurried away as he thanked her.
“Now we shall see,” said Wendy.
Sure enough, the man waited for a moment or two, and then turned his back on the busy street. Up went his eyeshade, and he snatched something out of the tin — something that rustled. He opened it, looked at it, and then thrust it into an inside pocket. Then, in a moment, his eyeshade came down again, and he turned round once more.
“There!” said Wendy. “That lady gave him a note, arid he wanted to see if it was a pound-note or a ten-shilling note, so he looked at it. He isn’t blind at all!”
“We must talk to him,” said Joan decisively. “He oughtn’t to do that sort of thing. It’s wicked.”
“Come along, then,” said Wendy, and together they went across the road and planted themselves in front of the blind man.
“Why do you pretend you’re blind?” asked Joan. “Don’t you know that it’s very wicked?”
The man started violently.
“What are you talking about?” he asked. “Go away! If you were as blind as I am, you’d know all about it!”
“You’re not blind at all!” said Wendy. “Vie saw you lift up your eyeshade and look at the note that lady gave you.”
“Hush! Hush!” said the man hurriedly. “How can you say such wicked things? Supposing someone heard you?”
“Everyone ought to hear us,” said Joan. “It’s wicked to cheat people like that. That poor lady gave you some money out of thankfulness to God because she’d got her eyes all right. You ought to give it back!”
“Now, you clear off!” said the man threateningly. “I’ll set my dog on you if you don’t clear off.”
“My dog wouldn’t let you!” said Wendy, and Pluto growled.
“But why do you do it?” asked Joan. “Why don’t you take off that silly notice, and just sell the matches without cheating anybody?”
“That’s none of your business,” snarled the man.
“I suppose it’s because people wouldn’t want to buy his matches, if he did,” said Wendy. “Now they give him pennies because they think he’s blind, but if he was just an ordinary man selling matches, they wouldn’t bother.”
“Now, look here, you two,” said the man in wheedling tones, “I’ll give you sixpence to go away and say nothing more about it, see? I don’t want any trouble. I’ll give you sixpence each to go away and say nothing. Eh?”
“No,” said Wendy, shaking her head. “We can’t do that.”
“A shilling, then. What about that, eh? A shilling each,” said the man.
“That wouldn’t be right,” said Joan. “You ought not to be cheating people, and we can’t take money to keep quiet about it. You must take off that eyeshade and that notice, and stop being a cheat. Don’t you ever think about God? What do you suppose He thinks, seeing you standing here pretending to be blind?”
“I’m not worrying my head about that,” said the man. “When God troubles me, I’ll trouble Him, but not before. It’s you I’m worrying about. Will you clear off for half a crown?”
“No!” said Wendy sharply. “You’re a wicked man, and we wouldn’t touch your money. And you’d better start thinking about God before it’s too late. He’s bound to punish you some day. Sinners always get punished if they don’t repent.”
“I’ll repent in good time, thank you,” said the man. “I’ll repent before I die, when I’ve made all the money I want. You won’t frighten me with all this talk about sinners. There’s plenty more as bad as me, so why should I worry?”
“All sinners will get punished if they don’t repent,” said Joan.
“I’ll repent all right, in my own good time,” said the man. “And if you two won’t see reason, and take good money when it’s offered to you, I’m going home. Good-bye!” And he jerked the string that was tied to his little dog’s collar, and set off at a good pace through the crowd.
“I wonder if he will repent,” said Wendy rather dolefully. “He didn’t look as if he was repenting much.”
“It’ll be an awful shame if he makes thousands of pounds by cheating, and then repents when he’s got enough, and lives happily ever after!” said Joan.
“Yes, but that wouldn’t do!” said Wendy, remembering something. “What about Zacchaeus? He gave back all he’d taken by cheating, and more besides, didn’t he? You have to do that if you really repent. So he couldn’t keep the thousands he got by pretending to be blind — he’d have to give them up. I wonder if he’s thought of that?”
“I bet he hasn’t!” said Joan. “I say — what a sell for him! Poor man — he thinks he’s cleverer than God, but he’ll get such a surprise some day.”
As they talked, they walked down the busy street, and presently saw quite a crowd in the road in front of them.
“I wonder if there’s been an accident!” said Wendy.
“Let’s go and see,” said Joan, and they took hands and ran forward, Pluto lolloping at their heels.
As they reached the fringe of the crowd, they heard the distant ringing of the ambulance bell, and knew that it really was an accident. They squeezed in between people — being quite small, they could push in where bigger people could not — and presently saw a motionless figure lying by the pavement, two cars and a bus standing by, a small dog sitting motionless by a broken tray. A policeman was doing something to the figure on the ground.
“Oh! It’s the blind man!” gasped Wendy. Joan poked a man standing nearby in the ribs. “Please, what happened?” she asked.
“The poor chap stepped right out into the road in front of that Cor,” answered the man. “The Cor swerved to avoid him, and then the other Cor had to swerve, and it hit the bus. But the man was hit, too. Poor chap! — he was blind, you see. He couldn’t see where he was going.”
“Is he dead?” asked a woman.
“Looks like it,” said the man.
Wendy squeezed Joan’s hand.
“Oh, he’s dead, and he hadn’t repented!” she whispered. Then she closed her eyes and prayed hard. “Oh, God, please don’t let him be quite dead! Please give him another chance, and let someone teach him what repenting really means. Please give him another chance, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.”
Just as she opened her eyes, the ambulance drove up, and the crowd scattered to make room for it. The two uniformed men got down and brought out their stretcher.
“I think he’s a goner,” said the policeman quietly; but one of the attendants bent down and examined the man carefully.
“Not quite,” he said. “I don’t think he’s got a chance, but he’s not quite dead yet. He’s pretty bad, though. The sooner we get him to hospital, the better it’ll be — if he lives till we get there.”
They put the unconscious man on to the stretcher, and placed it carefully inside the ambulance. Then the doors were shut, the engine started up, and they drove away. The policeman began taking notes from people who had seen the accident, and Wendy and Joan turned away.
“Oh, look at that poor little dog!” cried Joan suddenly. The blind man’s dog had tried to run after the ambulance, but it couldn’t keep up, and now it was sitting in the middle of the road, howling with grief.
“Poor little thing! Let’s take it home, Joan,” said Wendy eagerly. “I don’t suppose it’s got any friends. Pluto, you’ll be his friend, won’t you?”
Pluto wagged his tail, and snuffed the other dog all over.
Joan was quite willing, and they ran up the road, calling coaxingly to it, and finally Wendy got hold of the string that was tied to its collar.
“Poor old boy, then! Poor old boy!” she said soothingly, stroking it gently. “I wonder what his name is, Joan?”
“Look on his collar,” said Joan, and together they looked and found the name Jack.
“Jack! Jack!” called Joan, and they could tell by the way he perked up his ears that he recognized the name.
“Good old Jack!” said Wendy. “Now you come with us. We’ll look after you. Have you got anything left in your satchel that he could eat, Joan?”
“Let’s go down a quiet side road and see,” suggested Joan. “There are such a lot of people here, and the traffic will be starting tip again any minute now. Did you see that one of those cars was fixed to the bus?”
“What do you mean by fixed to the bus?” asked Wendy.
“Well, it had hit it so hard that it was jammed into it somehow. I wonder which Cor it was that knocked the man down? Perhaps it was the bus.”
“Nobody seemed to know,” said Wendy. “I expect it all happened so quickly after he stepped into the road. I suppose he was hurrying to get away from us, really, in case we told everybody that he wasn’t blind.”
“I do hope he isn’t dead,” said Joan.
“I asked God not to let him be dead just yet,” said Wendy. “I do so want him to have a chance of repenting properly first. You see, he said he’d repent in good time before he died, but he didn’t know he was going to be knocked down by a Cor so soon, did he?”
“I prayed about that, too,” said Joan. “Perhaps if God lets him live for a little while he’ll think about what we said, and he’ll repent properly. I’m going to pray for him to-night, Wendy. I’m sure he needs it”
“I will, too,” said Wendy. “Now, this is a quiet road — let’s see if there’s anything left that Jack would like to eat.”
And they gave Pluto something, too, for not minding about having Jack tagged on to them.