As the writer was sitting in a railway coach, a pleasant voice sang out:
“Paper, sir? Paper, sir? Morning paper, lady?”
There was nothing new in the words, nothing new to see a small boy with a package of papers under his arm; but the voice, so low and musical—its clear, pure tones, mellow as a flute, tender as only love and sorrow could make, called up hallowed memories. One look at the boy’s large, brown eyes, the broad fore-head, the mass of nutbrown curls, the pinched and hollow cheeks, and his history was known.
“What is your name, my boy?” I asked, as, half blind with tears, I reached out my hand for a paper.
“Johnny”; the last name I did not catch.
“You can read?”
“O, yes; I’ve been to school a little,” said Johnny, glancing out of the window; to see if there was need of haste.
I had a little brother whose name was Johnny. He had the same brown hair and tender, loving eyes; and perhaps it was on his account I felt very, very much disposed to throw my arms around Johnny’s neck, and to kiss him on his thin cheek. There was something pure about the child, standing modestly there in his patched clothes and little, half-worn shoes, his collar coarse, but spotless white, his hands clean and beautifully molded. A long, shrill whistle however, with another short and peremptory, and Johnny must be off. There was nothing to choose; my little Testament, with its neat binding and pretty steel clasp, was in Johnny’s hand.
“You will read it, Johnny?”
“I will, lady; I will.”
There was a moment—we were off. I drained my eyes out of the window after Johnny, but I did not see him; and, shuting them, I dreamed what there was in tore for him, not forgetting God’s love or the destitute and tendervoiced boy.
Later I made the same journey and passed over the same railroad. Halting or a moment’s respite at one of the many places on the way, what was my surprise to see the same boy, taller, healthier, with the same eyes and pure voice.
“I’ve thought of you, lady,” he said. “I wanted to tell you, it’s all the little Book.”
“What’s all the little Book, Johnny?”
“The little Book has done it all. I carried it home and Father read it. He was out of work then, and Mother cried over it; they quite frightened Uncle, who lived with us. At first I thought it was a wicked book to make them feel so bad; but the more they read the more they cried, and it’s all been different since. It’s the little Book; we live in a better house now, and Father doesn’t drink, and Mother says ‘twill be all right again.”
Dear little Johnny, he had to talk so fast; but his eyes were bright and sparing and his brown face all aglow.
“I’m not selling many papers now; and Father says maybe I can go to school this winter.”
Never did I so crave a moment of time. But now the train was in motion. Johnny lingered as long as prudence would allow.
“It’s all the little Book,” sounded in my ear; the little Book that told of Jesus and His love for poor, perishing men. What a change! A comfortable home; the man no more a slave to strong drink. Hope was in the hearts of his parents; health mantled the cheeks of the children. No wonder Johnny’s words came brokenly!
From the gloom of despair to a world of light from being poor and friendless, the little Book told them of One mighty to save, the very Friend they needed, the precious Saviour, with a heart of love and tenderness.
O, that all the Johnnys who sell papers, and the fathers that drink, and mothers that weep over the desolation of once happy homes, would take to their wretched dwellings the Book that tells of Jesus and His love! And not only these but all the Johnnys that have no parents, living in cellars, and sleeping in filth and wretchedness—would that they could learn from this little Book what a Friend they have in Jesus.
ML 04/18/1943