Rags was a little wire-haired terrier, with a rough head and big brown eyes. She belonged to the Martindale family and was a special favorite of little Barbara. Both Barbara and Rags were five years old and had been brought up together.
They lived in India in a white bungalow with a lovely wide sunny veranda in front. One day when Daddy was coming home, Rags dashed out to meet him and badly cut her little moist black nose on the screen wire. It became infected, and they had to take her to the vet. Rags was in such great pain that the kind vet only shook his head saying he could not do anything for her. He said she would have to be put to sleep for she would die anyway.
Little Barbara cried her heart out at the thought of losing her playmate.
“Don’t cry, darling,” said Mother. “We’ll ask the Lord Jesus to make Rags better if it is His will.”
Together they knelt down and prayed. Barbara was just a little girl, but she knew and loved the Lord Jesus and somehow she felt sure in her little heart that He would answer their prayer.
The next morning when Mother went to see the vet, he told her sadly, “We have just put her to sleep. Her pain was so great this morning that I felt it was cruelty to keep her alive.”
Mother looked down heavy-hearted at the stiff little body of Rags and thought of her little girl’s hope.
That evening little Barbara was trying to forget her grief by playing on the veranda when up the steps came the vet — and Rags! — not dead, but a very much alive little Rags, who frisked and tumbled about her small mistress with joyous abandon.
Smilingly the vet explained: “She fell down on the floor when we gave her ether, and we thought she was dead. But 20 minutes after you had gone, Mrs. Martindale, I went back and found her sitting up! I believe her nose will heal completely.”
And it proved to be true. Rags is an old dog now but is well and happy.
After that experience little Barbara, when she knelt to pray at night, would say: “Lord Jesus, bless Daddy and Mommy; help me to be a good girl; and I thank Thee for making Rags better.”
ML-12/12/1976