John’s eyes fell before the sweet pair of eyes looking at him, and he thought of all the sinful years he had lived, forgetting that he had a soul to be saved.
“I’m afrid I am, my dear,” he answered gravely.
“Well, you needn’t be afraid,” Nannie went on sweetly.
“If you’re sorry, you know, Jesus will forgive you just the way my mother does me, when I’m naughty sometimes. I know a hymn about Jesus —would you like to hear me sing it?” And folding her arms across the end of the log, she began to sing like a bird.
“One there is above all others
Well deserves the name of friend;
His is love beyond a brother’s,
Costly, free, and knows no end.
“Which of all our friends, to save us,
Could or would have shed his blood?
But the Saviour died to have us
Reconciled in Him to God.
“Oh, for grace our hearts to soften;
Teach us, Lord, at length to love!
We, alas, forget too often
What a Friend we have above.”
“I think that’s real sweet,” she said when she had finished.
“And I know another that says: ‘Don’t you be discouraged, for Jesus is your Friend.’ You mustn’t be afraid, John, because you’re a sinner. Jesus will forgive you if you ask Him.”
But just then, somebody across the yard called, “Nannie! Nannie!” She said, “Good-bye, John!” and ran away. In a little while, however, she came back again, and climbed up on one end of the big log that John was using for a saw horse.
“My aunty says I can stay here till the dinner bell rings,” she said. “I don’t live in this house all the time, you know, but I’ve come to make a visit till my mother gets home. She’s gone to the city to buy me a dress, and a dolly, and a picture book.”
“Where do you live when your mother’s at home?” asked John.
“Oh, I live at Hollybrook. That’s my daddy’s farm; and Patty lives there, and Susan, and my brother John. Did you know I had a brother John?”
“What’s your father’s name?” asked John, laying his saw down, for his hands trembled so that he could not hold it. “Tell me that, dear.”
Nannie laughed. “Why, I thought you knew,” she said. “I thought everybody knew my daddy. He’s Judge Stevens, but my mother doesn’t call him Judge. She calls him, ‘Roger, dear.’”
“And he lives at Hollybrook Farm?” said John with a tremulous voice. “And you’ve got a brother named John?”
“Yes, indeed. He’s named after my Uncle John, that died a long time ago.
I never saw him.”
“Are you sure of that?” asked John, with a queer smile about his mouth. “How do you know your uncle is dead?”
“Daddy said he was. Daddy heard it in a letter, a long time ago.”
“And was he sorry, do you think?”
“I guess he was. But I can’t ‘member very well, you know. I guess I wasn’t born then.”
“You little darling!”
John leaned across the log, put his arms around the child, and kissed the innocent lips that had brought him, all unconsciously, such good news. There was no doubt in his mind that she was his brother’s child, and had come fairly enough by that look in her face which was so sweet and well-remembered. His own little girl had “favored Roger,” everybody said. And to think of finding Roger again, after all these years! Roger, with a house of his own—named for the dear old home in England—and with a son that was called John!
John Stevens sawed no more wood that day. When the dinner bell rang, and little Nannie was called in, he went off to a quiet place in the woods, where nobody but God could see him. There on his knees he gave thanks, and prayed to the Saviour who is the Friend of sinners, and has promised pardon and peace to all who come to Him.
Then he started off for Hollybrook Farm. After a ten-mile tramp through wood and clearing he found it. He found Roger too, and in spite of all the years and changes, and of Roger’s believing that John had died in Australia a dozen years ago, the two brothers knew each other at once. Like Esau to Jacob, Roger “ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him, and they wept.” And John’s wanderings were over from that time forward.
His brother’s house became his home; and his brother’s wife, who had been the means of blessing to Roger, leading him to the Saviour, and to happiness, was equally so to John. But of all the household, little Nannie is the dearest to him, for it was the baby hand that led him first to the Friend of sinners.
ML 05/16/1954