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The boy, who
was barely four years old, struggled with the sticks of wood cradled in his arms, but
finally managed to dump his load into the large wood box behind the stove.
“That's enough stove wood, Bud,"
his mother said. “I
saw some flashes of lightning, and I don’t want you to get lightning struck.”
"Me neither," Bud said.
"Go wash your hands for supper;
it'll be ready in a few minutes," she said.
The boy skipped out onto the side
porch and began washing his hands in the pan on the shelf there. As he finished, a thunder bolt shook the
house and rattled the two tin cups hanging on the well nearby. The boy scurried back
into the kitchen - wiping his hands on the bib of his overalls.
"Mama," he blurted, "I think lightning struck the
well."
"Not hardly, you'd know it for sure if it had," his
mother said.
The boy's mother and sister were sitting on one side of the table
in straight-back chairs, and his older sister, Reba, was sitting on a bench on
the opposite side. He took a place on the far end of the bench from his sister.
"Bud didn’t half wash his hands, mama," his sister
said.|
“I did too half wash my hands” he said.
He put out his hands, palms, up to show his mother.
"They look fine to
That's funny, he thought, for he remembered that it was
Saturday and The Lone Ranger wouldn't be coming on - but he let the thought
pass.
For supper, there was always sugar can syrup, butter, and
biscuits, and the boy loved to stir syrup and butter together and to sop the
mixture with chunks of biscuit. On Saturday nights there would sometimes be a
platter of some type of meat, usually fatback or streak-o-lean. When the boy spied
the five pieces of pork chops on the platter in the middle of the table, he
couldn't resist reaching for a piece.
“No, Bud,” his mother scolded, “you know the rules; besides,
you still have to say grace.”
“I’m sorry, mama,” he said. “I forgot.”
When they had something special like pork chops, his mother would serve
out portions to each member of the family. She decided who got what size
portions and who got seconds - and her judgment was always final. He had high
hopes that she would remember how fond he was of pork chops and would give him
one of the largest pieces. After all, he was the baby of the family. He closed
his eyes and mumbled
the only thank-you prayer he knew:
“God is great, God is good. Thank you, God, for this food.
Amen.”
The boy was disappointed when his mother forked the smallest
pork chop onto his plate - but he figured she would let him have the
extra piece when he finished his first. To up his chances on that, he would
work to finish his piece before everybody else finished theirs. With that in
mind, he bit off a hearty chunk and began to chew on it. It was so good it made
him forget his purpose and he stopped chewing for a moment to better savor the
taste. He commenced, chewing slowly and
deliberately, and wallowed the meat around in his mouth, trying to make the
taste last as long as possible before swallowing. The sensation was so
satisfying that he reckoned this must the best pork chop in the whole wide world.
After
awhile, he began to worry that he might be getting behind the others in his
eating and he began to chew faster. He swallowed and took another bite, and at
that point began to worry that his mother might not give him the last piece if
he finished his first one without eating anything else. So he mixed some syrup
and butter on his plate and began sopping it with a biscuit. He ate as fast he
could without drawing attention. He stuffed the last chunk of his pork chop
into his mouth, together with the last chunk of his biscuit, which was covered
with the last of the syrup and butter on his plate. He felt his jaws bulge,
fought the urge to spit some of it back onto his plate, and looked around to
see if the others noticed his distress. They were too busy eating to
notice, and so he rolled the glob around in his mouth. Finally he reduced it to
a size and consistency that he could swallow. He swallowed hard and suppressed
a belch. He felt relieved and even a little proud of himself because the others
still had pork chop on their plates. He waited a little while, then asked.
“Mama, can I have the extra
pork chop?” She didn’t look up and so he tried again, this time a
little louder.
“Mama, can I have the extra pork chop?”
“Bud, you know better than to talk so loud at the table,” she
said. "Now, what were you saying that couldn't wait?”
“I wanted to know if I could have the last piece of pork chop; my
piece was the smallest one of all,” he said.
“Maybe it seemed really small to you because you ate it so fast.”
She said.
The boy knew he'd lost his chance at that last pork chop, and he fought back a
sob. Nobody seemed to notice when he eased off the bench and slipped out the door
and onto the porch. There was no longer any lightning flashes,
and he reckoned the storm was over. But not the storm inside him, and he needed
a good cry - and he knew the right place to have it. The house was set about
three feet off the ground on brick pillars, and the crawl space was completely
open. The boy got down on his all fours and crawled under the porch. He could
just make out the outline of his favorite pillar; it was near the center of the
house and he set out to crawl to it. The dirt was dry and very fine, and the
musty dust he stirred up burned his eyes and made him sneeze. He finally reached
the pillar, shooed the chickens away and sat down with his back against the pillar.
Then he began to cry.
“Poor old me,” he said out loud. “They’re always treating me
wrong, and they’ll be sorry some day. Poor old me."
Mama knows how much I love pork chops, and all I got was that one little biddy
piece.”
He paused to sob awhile and then went on talking to himself.
“Mama - and daddy - and Reba - will all be sorry for the way they
done me.”
He pictured his funeral in his mind, just the way he thought it
would be: folks from all around the countryside, even the folks from town,
would be there in the church, and they’d all be sad and crying and saying what
a good boy he’d been. His mama, daddy, and sister would be bunched around
his coffin in front of the pulpit, and they’d be looking down at him - and he'd
be all dressed up in his little blue suit. They’d be crying and sobbing, like he
was crying and sobbing now, and they’d be sorry for how they’d done him wrong.
“Poor old Bud, I wish I would have let him have that last piece of
pork chops," his mama would say.
“Poor old Bud, we ought to have spoken up and let him have that
last piece of pork chops,” his daddy and sister would say.
And the other folks would walk up to the coffin and look down at
him, and they’d all say:
“Poor old Bud; he was such a good
boy and nobody ought to have done him wrong.”
He imagined he'd be in heaven looking down
and enjoying his own funeral. But then, suddenly, doubt clouded that picture,
and he knew in an instant he had to clear it up. He crawled out from under the
house and stood up and looked across the porch and through the kitchen window
and into the kitchen. The kerosene lamp on the table cast enough light for him
to see that his mother, father, and sister were still sitting at the kitchen
table. He tip toed up the steps, down the long porch, and entered the main part of
the house. He groped his way to his little room and sat down on his bed. He
reached out a hand to the table beside the bed and felt the pocket-sized book
and picked it up. He felt the thin strip of ribbon between his fingers that he
knew marked the important page. He didn’t open the book because it was too dark
to see the words, and besides he hadn’t learned how to read; he knew the words
by heart:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
The boy pressed the little book against his chest with both hands
and closed his eyes; he began to pray silently and earnestly:
"Lord, I want to go to heaven when I die, not that other
place. Help me, and I'll do whatever you want me to."
A voice answered: "Rise up, Bud; rise up and go forth into
the night, and I will light your way."
He opened his eyes and stood up -
and tucked the little book into the bib of his overalls. The lightning had
resumed, and he easily found his way out of his room, into the main part of the
house, and onto the front porch. The lightning flashes lit his way down the
steps and across the yard. The bank and ditch between the yard and the road had
disappeared and he walked easily into the road, where he turned right. When the
boy started out, he was prepared for a long walk to his destination. But, in
what seemed like only a moment, he saw the white church up ahead - set a little
ways off the road. The tombstones and monuments in the cemetery stared at him
as he walked by, and he thought warmly of his kinfolks whom he was told were
buried there.
He walked to the front of the church and up the two steps onto the
porch. He checked the door knob, and was surprised when it turned in his hand -
for he knew the church door was normally locked when services were not going
on. He pushed the door ever so gently - and it swung in - pulling him into the
church and almost sending him sprawling in the aisle. The church was full of
people. They sat side-by-side, close enough to touch each other on all the
benches, and they stood shoulder to shoulder along the walls. He saw now why he
had not heard anything before. The preacher stood in front of the pulpit with
his eyes closed; he was leading the congregation in a silent prayer.
"Amen," Preacher Red bellowed;
and the crowd flung back a host of hardy Amens.
Preacher Red raised his hands above his head, the piano responded
with a flourish, and everybody stood up and sang:
"Are you washed in the blood, in
the soul- cleansing blood of the lamb?"
The boy walked down the aisle, urged
on by the power of conviction. He knew every eye in the church was on him, but
he didn't mind.
"Are your garments spotless, are
they white as snow? Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?"
Half way down the aisle, he could see
the back of the piano player; he could tell it was Aunt Annie by the dress she
wore and the way her hair was bobbed. When he got a few feet from the
preacher,
Aunt Annie turned around, smiled at him - and winked. Preacher Red reached out
and pulled the boy to him and hugged him. The boy kneeled, and the preacher
laid his hands on the boy's head, and said:
"Son, what's your name?"
"Bud Westin," Bud answered.
"And how old are you, Bud?"
For the first time that day, the boy remembered it was his birthday; "I'm four years old," he said.
"Bud, do you take the Lord Jesus
Christ as your personal Savior and promise to do whatever he asks of you?"
"I do," Bud said.
"Good Folks, will you welcome this boy, Bud Westin, into the
company of our Savior and into the fellowship of our church?"
"We will," roared the crowd, "we will."
The preacher then said: "Bud Westin, in the name of our Dear
Savior, I welcome you into the company of all Christians and into the
fellowship of our church. God bless you."
A warm, peaceful feeling came
over the boy's mind and body. He started to get up, couldn't, tried again -
still couldn't.
"Wake up, Bud."
The boy recognized his mother's voice and felt so good that she was
there with him. Now she was shaking him gently.
"Wake up, Bud - wake up,"
she said; You must be mighty hungry because all you
had for supper was that one little piece of pork chop."
He was sitting on the side of his
bed, and his mama was standing beside him and was holding a kerosene lamp in
one hand.
"I found your little New Testament on the floor; you must
have dropped it when you dozed off. Come on back to kitchen and finish your
supper."
She held up the lamp to light there way to the kitchen, but when
they got to the kitchen door she did something that seemed awful strange to the
boy; she blew out the lamp, and when she pushed the door open, all he could see,
in that otherwise pitch-dark room, was four little glowing objects. Someone lit
a lamp, and he could see that the for lights were candles setting atop a pretty
blue cake which sat right in the middle of the kitchen table.
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY,
The boy was speechless for the first and only time in his life -
as he skipped around the room. At last he blurted out:
"Mama, can I have the last piece of pork chops tonight?"
"You can have all the pork chops you want, including the last piece," she
said - and gathered the boy into her arms.
