The American Missionary — Volume 35, No. 8, August, 1881Various
Religion
The American Missionary — Volume 35, No. 8, August, 1881
Various
Congregational churches -- Missions -- Periodicals; Home missions -- Periodicals
“Just think, mamma! grandpa Gray gave me a five dollar bill just as
he was getting into the cars to go home, and said I might do just
what I pleased with it; wasn’t that splendid?”
“Yes, Gracie, what shall you do with it?”
“Don’t know yet, shall have to think;” and Gracie flattened her
nose against the window-pane one short moment, the next she
exclaimed:
“Oh, see, ma, there goes one of those colored students; do you
suppose they ever learn much?”
Something in the child’s tone pained Mrs. Gray, and she answered
seriously:
“Just as much as any others; my little girl has yet to learn that
any difference in young men that is only skin deep is a very slight
difference, and none whatever in the sight of God.”
“Well,” replied the petted child, “I like white folks best, and
_always shall_;” and she gave her pretty head with its fair hair a
smart little toss. Before her mother could reply, she asked hastily:
“May I run across the bit of woods and see Jennie Hale a little
while?”
Her mother said yes, and the next moment Gracie was skipping along
through the “bit of woods” towards the home of her little friend,
when all at once she struck her foot against a little stump,
bounded into the air for an instant, then fell heavily. There she
lay moaning in dreadful pain.
“Oh, dear!” she cried, “I’ve broken my ankle, I know I have, and
that horrid Dr. Stuart will have to set it, and he sha’n’t, he
sha’n’t! I’ll die if he does! Oh, dear, what shall I do!”
Dr. Frank Bates, a colored student in the medical department of the
college for freedmen, close by, was walking slowly along with a
book in his hand—a way these students have, somehow, of improving
every moment—when he thought he heard a moan. He listened, and sure
enough it _was_ a moan, very near, too, and putting the book in his
pocket, he soon reached the spot where Gracie was lying.
He was a very tall, strong young man, but tender-hearted and gentle
as a woman could be. He knelt beside Gracie, who cried with pain
when he tried to lift her.
“There, there,” he crooned pityingly, his great, soft eyes full
of compassion; “wait a moment, and Dr. Frank’ll make it all right
for poor sissy;” and seeing at once what was the real trouble, he
fortunately found a little board, and tearing his bright Madras
handkerchief into strips, with what skill he could carefully
splintered and bandaged the broken limb; then lifting her firmly in
his strong arms, he carried her steadily and safely along to her
home.
Grade’s mother, in all her distress at her little girl’s pain,
did not forget to thank him warmly for what he had done. Then
she added. “Now we will send for Dr. Stuart, and soon have you
comfortable, poor little Gracie.”
But to Mrs. Gray’s surprise, Gracie cried out: “Oh no, no, mamma,
let Dr. Frank stay; I know my limb is broken and must be set all
right; he told me so; but I want Dr. Frank; I’ll be good, only let
him stay.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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