The Scarred Hand

William Dixon was an infidel, and would have nothing to do with religion. Even if there was a God, which he doubted, he could not forgive Him for taking away his young wife about two years after they were married, and his little boy had also died. Will felt very desolate and bitter and vowed he would never enter a church as long as he lived, and for ten years he kept his word.
Dixon was extremely fond of children, and the death of his little boy was almost as bitter as the loss of his wife.
Ten years after Mary Dixon’s death a stirring event occurred in the little village of Brakenthwaite. Old Peggy Winslow’s cottage one day caught fire, and was burnt to the ground. The poor old woman was pulled out alive, though nearly suffocated by smoke, when the bystanders were horrified to hear a child’s pitiful voice. It was the voice of little Dicky Winslow, Peggy’s orphan grandchild, on whom neither his grandmother nor anyone else lavished any thought or affection, and who had consequently been forgotten in the excitement of the lire until the flames awoke him and drove him shrieking to the window of the attic where he slept.
The onlookers were much distressed to see the neglected child, but felt that it was too late to save him, as the rickety wooden stair had already fallen in. Then suddenly, with an exclamation of “Cowards!” William Dixon rushed to the burning cottage, climbed up the tottering wall by means of the iron piping, and took the trembling little boy in his arm. Down he came again, holding the child in his right arm and supporting himself by his left, and the two reached the ground in safety, amid the cheers, just as the smoking walls fell.
Little Dicky was not hurt at all, but the hand with which Will had held on to the hot piping was terribly burnt. The burn healed, but left a deep scar, that Will would carry to his grave.
Poor old Peggy could not rally from the shock, and died soon after, and then the question was, What was to become of Dicky? James Lovatt, a most respectable person, begged that Dicky might be given to him to adopt, as he and his wife longed for a little lad, having lost one of their own, and, to every one’s surprise, Will Dixon made a similar request. It was difficult to decide between the two, and so a meeting was called, composed of the minister, the mill owner, and a number of others. Mr. Haywood, the miller, said, “It is very kind of both Lovatt and Dixon to offer to adopt the orphan boy, but I am in a great perplexity as to which of them ought to have him. Dixon, having saved his life, has the first claim; but on the other hand, Lovatt has a wife, and the care of a woman is most necessary to a young child.”
Mr. Lipton, the minister, said: “Moreover, a man of Dixon’s atheistic notions cannot be a suitable guardian for a child; he would doubtless make the boy an unbeliever like himself. But both Lovatt and his wife are Christian people, and would train up the child in the way he should go.”
Mr. Haywood said again: “I would be sorry to underrate in any way the heroic courage and self-sacrifice which Dixon displayed in saving the boy’s life, but we are bound to remember that heroic courage is by no means the chief thing that is needed in the education of a child. A man may be as brave as a lion, and yet utterly unsuited to take charge of the young.”
“Dixon saved the child’s body,” said the minister,” but it rests with us to see that his soul is saved also. And it would be a sorry thing for the boy’s future welfare if the one who took him from the burning cottage would be the means of leading him to his eternal ruin.”
“We will hear what the applicants themselves have to say,” said Mr. Haywood, “and then I will put the question to the vote. Now, Mr. Lovatt, let us hear your reasons for wanting the boy.”
Mr. Lovatt replied: “Well, gentlemen, my wife and I lost a little lad of our own not long ago, and we feel as if this child would fill the vacant place. I have nothing to say against my friend Dixon, for a more civil fellow workman no man need care to have, but it does seem to me that a child like Dicky would be happier saying his prayers at my Susan’s knees than listening to the atheistic talk of Dixon and his friends. We would do our best to bring up the lad in the fear of the Lord. Besides, a child so young needs a woman to look after it, and my Susan is very fond of children and real clever with them, and we never had any of our own but the dear little boy who died.”
“Very good, Mr. Lovatt, these are certainly good reasons why you should be permitted to adopt the boy. Now, Mr. Dixon, what arguments have you to bring forward to prove that your claim should be preferred to Loyatt’s?”
“I have only one argument, sir, and it is this,” answered Dixon quietly, as he took the bandage off his left hand and held up the sadly scarred and injured hand.
For a few moments there was quiet in the room, and then the men broke out into loud cheering, while some of their throats felt husky, and their eyes dimmed. There was something in the sight of that scarred hand which appealed to their sense of justice, and was more powerful than all James Lovatt’s well-grounded reasoning; and when the question was put to the vote, the meeting decided by a majority in favor of William Dixon.
One who was present, in speaking of it afterward, said: “It was the sight of Will’s hand as did it. None of us could go against that.” “And I believe you are right, my man,” said the miller. “No matter what his views are, he certainly has a claim on that boy by reason of what he has suffered for him.”
So a new era began for Dixon. Dicky never missed a mother’s care, for Will was both father and mother to the orphan boy, and lavished all the pent-up tenderness of his strong nature upon the child he had saved. He taught the boy to read, and told wondering Dicky the stories which he had made ready years ago for the little son who did not stay and hear them. Dicky was a clever boy, and quickly responded to his adopted father’s training, and he adored him with all the fervor of his loving little heart. He remembered how daddy ‘had saved him from the fire, and he was never tired of hearing how James Lovatt had wanted to make him his boy, and how daddy had claimed him because of the poor hand that had been so very dreadfully burnt for his sake. This story nearly always moved Dicky to tears, and ended in the showering of passionate kisses on the injured member; for the sight of the hand that had been scarred for him awoke all the love in the boy’s soul, and intensified his devotion to his deliverer.
“I shan’t never be the Lovatt’s little boy, shall I, daddy?” “No, lad, you are mine.”
One summer there was a great exhibition of pictures in the town and Dixon took Dicky to see them. The boy was greatly interested in the pictures, and the stories daddy told about some of them, but the picture that impressed him most was one of the reproof by the Lord to Thomas, underneath which were the words, “Reach hither thy finger and behold My hands” (John 20:2727Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. (John 20:27)).
Dicky read the words and said, “Tell me the story of that picture, please, daddy.”
“No, not that one,” said Will.
“Why not that one?”
“Because it is a story that I do not believe.”
“Oh, but that’s nothing,” urged Dicky, “you don’t
believe the story of Jack the Giant Killer, and yet it is one of my favorites. Do tell me the story of the picture, please daddy.” So Dixon told him the story, and it interested him greatly.
“It’s like you and me, daddy. When the Lovatt’s wanted to get me you showed them your hand. Perhaps when Thomas saw the scars on the Good Man’s hands he knew that he belonged to Him.”
“I suppose so,” answered Will.
“The Good Man looked so sad,” said Dicky, “I ‘spect He was sorry that Thomas did not believe at first. It was horrid of him not to, wasn’t it, after the Good Man had died for him?”
Will did not answer, and so Dicky went on: “It would have been horrid of me if I’d contradicted like that when they told me about you and the fire, and said I didn’t believe you done it, wouldn’t it, daddy?”
“Yes, very.”
“Supposin’ I’d been horrid like Thomas and not believed about you and the fire, should I have had to be the Lovatt’s little boy?”
“Of course not; you would have been mine whether you believed it or not, because I had saved you,” answered Will almost fiercely, dimly conscious that he was carrying on a line of argument which he had heard somewhere before in the far past.
“But you see I would have believed at once when I saw your hand, like Thomas did,” said Dicky soothingly, noticing that his beloved daddy was ruffled and was in need of consolation.
For the rest of the day Dicky’s thoughts ran on what he called his favorite picture, and in the evening he wanted daddy to tell him the story again. “Thomas must have been sorry he had made the Good Man look so sad. I should be awful sorry if I made you look as, sad as that, daddy. I don’t like Thomas very much, do you?”
“I don’t want to think about him, my boy.”
“But perhaps he loved the Good Man forever and ever after that, though, like I love You. When I see your poor band, daddy, I love you more than millions and millions and millions and―.”
And tired little Dicky fell asleep before he had measured the amount of his grateful affection.
Will Dixon’s rest was sorely disturbed that night. He could not get out of his thoughts the picture of a tender, sorrowful face that had looked down on him from the walls of the exhibition. He dreamed that Lovatt and himself were once more contending for the possession of Dicky, but when he showed his scarred hand the boy turned away from it and from him. A bitter sense of injustice surged up in his heart, and he awoke to find tears running down his face. Then he fell asleep again, and this time he dreamed that he was in Dicky’s place, and that Someone was holding out a scarred hand to claim him, and a voice said, pleadingly: “I have only one argument, and it is this, ‘Reach hither thy finger and behold My hands.’” Even in his dream Will acknowledged the power of such an argument and the justice of such a claim; but as he was about to yield, he was aroused by Dicky’s warm kisses.
Will Dixon could not forget the picture in the exhibition and his dreams about it. He did not yield to this influence at once, but his love for Dicky had softened his heart, and the seed that day did not fall upon stony ground. Will was an honest man, and he could not fail to see that the one argument which he had employed to prove thaw Dicky was his own rose up in judgment against him when he denied the claim of the sacred hands which had been scarred for him: and when he saw the child’s warm-hearted gratitude for the deliverance which his adopted father had wrought for him, Will felt that he cut a sorry figure beside his boy. So after a time Will’s heart became as the heart of a little child. He found out by reading the Book that as Dicky belonged to him, so he belonged to the Saviour who had been wounded for his transgressions, and he gave himself up―body, soul and spirit-into the keeping of those blessed hands which had once been scarred for him.
E. T. Fowler.