PART 1.
“The depression” had found its way into the Gas Creek region, deep in the Rockies of Colorado, David Morton, ten years resting: heavily on his thin young shoulders, was not thinking of it in terms of stocks and bonds or world conditions: he was concerned over something to eat and wear and a place to live. So intent was he on these problems, as he trudged up the narrow, rutted road to the schoolhouse, that he failed to note the beauty of his surroundings—the grandeur of the distant peaks, the pines softly covered with snow, the valley glittering with a million diamonds. He was not even listening to the wind as it whistled through the trees, a, sound he loved: today he only shivered and drew his shabby coat closer about him.
“It’s not fair!” he suddenly shouted to a chattering blue jay in an adjacent spruce.
“It’s not. She’s the onliest brother ‘n’ sister I got.” He tried to think, but the doctor’s words kept bothering him. “She needs to cry,” the doctor had said That was last night. He had been curled up behind the stove, trying to keep warm, when he heard his mother say,
“Father, I’m worried about sister; she isn’t picking up as she should. She won’t eat, and she fusses in her sleep. Henry, can’t we call the doctor? We’ll pay him when better times come.”
There was pleading in her voice, and father had gone for the doctor. When the doctor came, he examined the baby carefully, and then said bluntly,
“There is nothing the matter with the child, except that her little lungs are not developed; she needs to cry, that’s all.”
“It’s true, doctor, that I haven’t let her cry. I’ve held her and hushed her for fear she’d disturb the people downstairs, who have so kindly let us have these two rooms, free of rent.” Mother’s voice had choked and the doctor had gone away soon afterward.
“Father wants to work,” David muttered defiantly to the world at large. “It isn’t his fault we haven’t enough to eat—and I guess we have to live somewhere.” But the problem remained—place to live where baby sister could cry.
So absorbed was he in thought that he stumbled in his heavy boots and fell down in the snow. His dinner pail was sent rolling, not that it mattered, for it was empty save for a lone piece of cold cornbread. In picking up his lunch, he thought happily of the new teacher at the Gas Creek school. She often gave him some of her own lunch to add to his. If she hadn’t, he would have often been more hungry than he was. But an apple, a fat sandwich, a piece of cake, or perhaps a cooky or nuts helped out a great deal. His mouth watered hungrily.
“I wonder what she’ll give me today,” he sighed. “Maybe I can take some of it to mother. Mother looks so thin and tired.” He clenched his fists, blue with cold. “When I get big, there’ll just have to be jobs enough to go ‘round.” He thought of the teacher again, and of the idea he had been pondering ever since the doctor had left last night.
“Maybe her Jesus will help us.” At the thought his steps quickened, and then as he rounded the bend and the stone schoolhouse came into view, involuntarily they slowed again, for in the yard the “gang” was playing snowball.
“If I get there just in time for the bell they won’t have a chance to yell mean things at me,” he reasoned. He’d never let the gang know the agony it caused him to come to school dressed as he was. Of course he looked like a scarecrow in his father’s old cut-down overalls and shirt, and those rubber boots for shoes. They weren’t so warm either; his toes were stiff with cold right now; but he wouldn’t complain. Father and mother did the best they could, and it would only make them feel bad.
Slowly as he walked, someone caught sight of him and yelled derisively,
“Hey, fellers, here comes Boots!” They all laughed with that unconscious, cruelty of youth.
He quickly entered the schoolhouse, as he warmed himself by the fire, the jeers forgotten, he thought happily. “I’ll ask teacher today.”
The school bell rang and the sturdy rosy-cheeked youngsters filed into the schoolroom. There were only fourteen or fifteen in all, and they came in quietly, for even the most mischievous of them had a great respect for Miss Nelson, the new teacher, She was very different from all their other teachers. How vividly they remembered that first morning of school. When all were in their seats, she had said in a soft clear voice (little they knew the courage it had taken to do so),
“Before we begin our school this morning, let’s bow our heads and ask Jesus to be with us.”
Then she bent her head and closed her eyes (hadn’t they all watched?), and talked to this Some One called Jesus, whom they couldn’t see. And every morning since then she had opened the school with prayer.
ML 09/15/1940