The Milk-Bottle Boy
THE milkman’s cart was rattling gaily along the village street, with all the bottles and cans jumping about and singing a merry song inside it as the driver shook the reins and whistled to his horse. Wendy and Joan heard it coming, and stood on one side to let it pass. They were in a strange village now, and were thinking how different it was from their own. They did not know its name, and it struck them as very odd and amusing. For instance, at home the milk was brought by Old Tom with a handcart, while here they used a horse. And there were other things, too. The church was on the left-hand side of the road instead of on the right, and it had a steeple instead of a square tower. And the post office did not sell sweets, as theirs did at home. Joan and Wendy thought they would not like to live there at all.
As they walked up the street, talking about the place, they saw the milkman stop his horse, jump out of the cart, and go into a gate, still whistling, carrying his wire tray full of milk bottles with him.
Suddenly a small boy appeared, looked round carefully, and jumped on the back of the cart. Then he jumped down again, but now he had a bottle of milk in his hand. He looked round again, and then darted down a turning.
“Did you see that?” cried Wendy.
“He was stealing that milk!” ejaculated Joan. “Shall we tell the milkman?”
“I wonder where he’s gone?” said Wendy thoughtfully.
“He went to that cottage. I can see him at the door now, talking,” said Joan.
“No, I didn’t mean him — I meant the little boy,” said Wendy. “He went down that turning over there. Let’s see if we can find him.”
“Not tell the milkman?” asked Joan.
“No, let’s talk to the boy,” said Wendy, and she led the way down the turning.
At first they could not see any place where the boy might be hiding; but as they went round a bend in the lane, they saw a haystack in a field a little way farther on.
“I bet that’s where he is,” said Joan, beginning to run. “Come on!”
Wendy ran after her, and they passed through the open gate of the field, and towards the haystack. As they rounded it, they saw a startled looking boy pushing something into the stack, and Joan bounded forward and thrust her hand in after it.
“Go away!” shouted the boy, pushing her off. But Joan brought out her hand triumphantly, with the missing milk bottle held in it!
“There!” she cried.
The boy burst into tears, and threw himself down on the ground with his face buried on his arms.
“Don’t send me to prison,” he sobbed. “I won’t do it again! Don’t tell the policeman!”
“What did you do it for?” asked Wendy, sitting down beside him.
“I was thirsty,” said the boy, turning his head away and sniffing. “There wasn’t no milk at home, so I thought I’d pinch some. I done it often before, an’ I never bin caught yet till you two come along.”
“Don’t you know it’s wrong to pinch things?” asked Wendy.
“Yah! It doesn’t matter,” said the boy. “If I hadn’t been caught, it wouldn’t have mattered. No one saw me but you.”
“God saw you,” said Joan.
“And it made Him very sorry,” added Wendy.
“Sorry?” The boy laughed miserably. “He don’t care about me, He don’t! He wouldn’t have nothing to do with me. I’m too bad. Everyone says so.”
“Don’t be so silly!” cried Wendy. “He loves bad people best!”
“Not better than good people, Wendy, does He?” asked Joan anxiously.
“Well, He died for bad people, to make them good,” said Wendy. “We’re all bad really, so He died for all of us. But the badder you are, the more you need Him to have died for you, don’t you?”
“He never died for me,” said the little boy. “Everyone says I’m the baddest boy in the village, and old Mrs. Baxter said God wouldn’t love me if I was bad, so there you are, you see! He doesn’t love bad people — He only loves them if they’re nice and clean and good. I’m a little sinner, I am. My Dad says so, and everyone says so.”
“I expect you are; but still Jesus died for you,”
said Wendy, who was feeling terribly sorry for the little boy.
“It says so in the Bible,” said Joan, remembering one of the texts they had copied out. She began to rummage in her pocket. “Wendy — have you got our text paper?”
Wendy searched in her pocket and found it.
“Yes, here it is,” she said. “Now you listen to this, boy. This is what the Bible says. You believe the Bible knows more about God than Mrs. Baxter does, don’t you?”
I suppose it does,” said the little boy.
“Well, the Bible says: ‘While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.’ That’s good enough, isn’t it? That means you, doesn’t it?”
“Do you mean that Jesus knows how bad I am, and yet He died for me?” asked the boy, sitting up and staring at the two girls. “How could He?”
“It says so here, so it must be true,” said Wendy. “And I know it is true that He loves us all, even if we are naughty.”
“Ah, but I’m more than naughty — I’m real, right- down, wicked bad, I am!”
“Well, He still loves you. I’ll tell you another thing it says in the Bible: ‘Nothing can separate us from the love of God.’ That’s clear enough, isn’t it?” said Joan.
“I don’t understand it,” said the boy, rubbing his head in a puzzled way. “You see, it was like this. I wasn’t very bad at first, just a bit naughty sometimes— like most people, I suppose — but that Mrs. Baxter, she told me that God wouldn’t love me if I was naughty. And then, I suppose, I was pretty bad sometimes, and Dad said I was a little sinner, and the lady next door said I was the worst boy she’d ever known, and then I thought of what Mrs. Baxter had said, and I guessed God didn’t love me any more, so I thought I’d be real bad then!”
“I suppose it didn’t seem worth while to try to be good, then, if you thought that what they said was true,” suggested Joan.
“That’s right. I thought it wasn’t any good trying to be good, if He’d given me up, so I got badder and badder,” the boy answered. “It wasn’t much fun, really. At first I felt awfully proud to be the worst boy in the village; but it soon stopped being fun. And I’m sick of it now!”
“Well, it seems to me a silly idea!” said Joan.
“God never gives anyone up,” said Wendy indignantly. “You’ve only got to be really sorry, and tell Him so, and put the things right that you’ve done wrong, and it’s all right.”
“Are you sure of that?” asked the boy doubtfully. “It sounds too easy.”
“It’s easy enough for anybody,” said Wendy.
“I shall have a lot of things to put right,” said the boy thoughtfully. “But, oh, it’ll be marvelous not to have to be thinking of bad things to do all the time! I had to show them that I really was the worst boy in the village, you see, and I grew so tired of it! It was fun at first, but I did grow tired of it! Now I shan’t have to bother any more.”
“Well, that’s a good thing,” said Wendy.
“Do you go to Sunday school?” asked Joan.
“What’s the use? — what was the use, when God didn’t love me anymore?” asked the boy. “Mum thought I went, but I used to pinch some fags and smoke behind this haystack. But it wasn’t much fun, doing it all alone. I used to watch the other kids going to Sunday school, and wish I hadn’t been so bad, sometimes. I used to wish God loved me again, sometimes. Are you sure He does?” asked the little boy anxiously.
“Dead certain sure!” said Joan.
“Absolutely plumb certain!” said Wendy.
“Well, I suppose I’d better give this milk bottle back first,” said the boy, with a comical grin. “I’ve drunk a bit of it. I’ll bet he clips me — but I can run!”
“I’ve got some milk here,” said Wendy, undoing the satchel she was carrying. “We’ll fill the bottle up, and then he can’t grumble.”
“I say, you are a sport!” said the boy.
They poured in some of the milk, and then found the cardboard top of the bottle among the hay, and dusted it, and put it in place again. Then they all got up.
“Well, so long,” said the boy. “Er — thanks!”
“We’re coming with you,” said Joan decisively.
“Are you really?” He brightened up at once. “That’s fine! Let’s go. He’ll have got to Windmill Cottages by now, I expect.”
The three children ran off. Windmill Cottages were some distance away by road, but they dodged over fields and reached them in pretty good time. The milkman was standing at the back of his cart, packing bottles into the tray, when they saw him. The little boy marched up to him.
“Hello, Jimmy, what do you want?” asked the milkman, watching the boy narrowly. “What are you doing with that bottle?”
“I pinched it. I’ve come to give it back,” said the little boy, putting the bottle down hurriedly on the cart, then backing out of range of the milkman’s long arm.
“Oh, you did, did you?” cried the man indignantly. “And what have you put in it, I’d like to know? Water? Salt? Pepper? Flour?”
“No, nothing,” said Jimmy, shaking his head. “Only some milk these girls gave me, because I’d drunk some of yours.”
The milkman sat down on the end of his cart, tilted his cap back, and scratched his head.
“What’s the game?” he asked at last.
“There isn’t a game. Only, I’m not the worst boy in the village any more,” said Jimmy.
“Who is, then?” asked the milkman.
“I don’t know,” said Jimmy; “but it isn’t me. I’ve suit. So I had to bring your bottle back.”
The milkman looked at him thoughtfully, and then at the two girls.
“Is he speaking the truth?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Joan.
“You see, people had been telling him lies about God, so he thought he might as well be bad,” Wendy explained.
The milkman looked grave.
“Ah, that’s bad!” he said. “People do tell you such things! I’ll give you a bit of advice, my lad: don’t you believe what people tell you — you go and read in His own Book about Him, and you won’t go far wrong. I’d make an exception in favor of your Sunday-school teacher and the Vicar — they’re to be trusted to tell you right about God. But other people— you be very careful what you listen to about Him. Read it up for yourself, and you won’t go far wrong.”
“I don’t know where to read,” said Jimmy in perplexity.
“You can ask your Sunday-school teacher, can’t you?” said the milkman. “She’d be only too pleased to tell you. Don’t be shy. Just up and ask her!”
“That’s a good idea,” said Joan.
“All right, I will,” said Jimmy. “And” — he turned to Wendy —“could you tell me where the bits are that you told me about, when we were by the haystack? I’d like to read those for myself. About Jesus dying for me when I was a sinner, I mean, and that bit about the love of God.”
“I’ll write them down for you,” said Wendy promptly, and she did.
“And now,” said the milkman, “if you like to come round with me this morning, and help me to deliver the milk, you can have this bottle, the one you took, back again. Any morning during the holidays, or on Saturdays, that you like to come round with me, I’ll give you a bottle of milk. Is that O.K.?”
“Coo, yes!” said Jimmy gleefully. “Can I ride in the cart, too?”
“Yes, of course you can. Did you think I meant you to run behind like a little dog? Up you get! Now say good-bye to your friends — we’ve got to be off!”
So Jimmy said good-bye and thanked them again, and the milkman shook the reins and whistled to his horse, and then went riding down the road with all the milk bottles and cans playing a merry tune as they went. And Joan and Wendy and Pluto watched them out of sight, waving good-bye, and feeling very happy indeed.