Who Will Help Someone on Christmas Day?

Collected and annotated

By Bill Russo

 

 Who will help someone today? A total stranger's mishaps will take you out of your way.  You'll be late for work perhaps.  The young boy in this short tale, written by one from the 'old school', is one of the rare boys who did not fail. He followed the Golden Rule!.

It’s so easy to turn away and walk by when we hear a stranger cry. We take care of our own family, but cannot be expected to give aid and comfort to people we don’t know.  Can we?

Today’s story is set in late December but it’s not really a Christmas narrative - yet it conveys the real meaning of Christmas as well as just about any story written specifically for December 25^th.  In just 1200 words, here’s an ancient narrative by Ann Morrison, that I call,

Will You Help Someone Today?

“Boys,” said Mrs. Howard one morning, looking up from a letter she was reading, “I have had a letter from your grandmother. She writes that she is returning to Massachusetts shortly.”

The boys went on with their breakfast without showing any great amount of interest in this piece of news, for they had never seen their grandmother, and therefore could not very well be expected to show any affection for her.

Now Mrs. Howard, the mother of two of the boys and aunt to the third little fellow, was a widow and very poor, and often found it a hard task to provide for her “three boys,” as she called them, for, having adopted her little orphan nephew, she always treated him as her own son. She had sometimes thought it strange that old Mrs. Howard should not have offered to provide for Larry herself but she had never done so, and at last the younger Mrs. Howard had ceased to expect it. But now, right at the end of her letter, Grandmother Howard wrote:--

“I have been thinking that perhaps it would come a little hard on you to support not only your own two boys, but poor Alice’s son, and so, on my return to Massachusetts, I propose, if you are willing, to adopt one of them, for I am a lonely old woman and shall be glad of a young face about me again.”

After thinking the matter over, Mrs. Howard decided she would say nothing about their grandmother’s intention to the boys, as she thought that it was just possible she might change her mind again.

Time passed on, and winter set in, and full of the delights of skating, the boys forgot all about the expected arrival of their grandmother.

During the Christmas holidays the boys one morning started off to Kelleher’s Pond for a good day’s skating. They carried their dinner with them, and were told to be sure and be home before dark.

As they ran along the frosty Essex Street they came suddenly upon a poor old woman, so suddenly that Larry ran right up against her before he could stop himself. The old woman grumbled about “lazy, selfish boys, only thinking of their own pleasure, and not caring what happened to a poor old woman!”

But Larry stopped at once and apologized, in his polite little way, for his carelessness.

“I am sorry,” he said. “I hope I did not hurt you; and you have such heavy parcels to carry too. Won’t you let me help you?”

“Oh! come on, Larry,” said his cousins; “we shall never get to the pond at this rate!”

“Yes, go on,” said the old woman sharply; “your skating is of a great deal more importance than an old woman, eh?”

But Larry’s only answer was to take the parcels and trudge merrily along beside his companion.

On the way to her cottage the old woman asked him all sorts of questions about himself and his cousins, and then, having reached her cottage, dismissed him with scarcely a “thank you” for the trouble he had taken. But Larry did not take it much to heart.

He raced along, trying his hardest to overtake his cousins before they reached the pond, and was soon skimming about with the rest of them.

Mr. Kelleher, the iceman, in whose grounds the boys were skating, afterwards came down to the pond to watch the fun, and, being a kind-hearted old gentleman, offered to give a prize of a new pair of skates to the boy who should win the greatest number of races.

As it was getting late, it was arranged that the contest would happen on the following day, and the businessman invited all the boys who took part in it, to come up to his house to a holiday party, after the fun was over.

How delighted Larry was, for he was a first-rate skater, and he did so want a new pair of skates!

But Mr. Kelleher’s skates were not to be won by him, for on the following day as he and his cousins were on their way to the pond, they came across the curious old woman whom they had met on the previous day.

She was sitting on the ground, and seemed to be in great pain. The boys stopped to ask what ailed her, and she told them that she had slipped and twisted her foot, and was afraid that her ankle was sprained, for she could not bear to put it to the ground.

 “You musn’t sit here in the cold,” said Larry; “come, try and get up, and I will help you home.”

“Oh! Larry,” cried both his cousins, “don’t go. You will be late for the races, and lose your chance of the prize.”

Poor Larry! He turned first red, then white, and then said, in a husky tone of voice—

“Never mind—you go on without me.”

“You’re a good boy,” said the old woman. “Will you be very sorry to miss the fun?”

Larry muttered something about not minding much, and then the brave little fellow set himself to help the poor old woman home, as gently and tenderly as he could.

She would not let him come in with her, but told him to run off as quickly as he could, and perhaps after all, he would not be too late for the skating. But Larry could not bear to leave her alone and in pain, so he decided to run home and fetch his Aunt.

When Mrs. Howard arrived at the cottage, you can think how surprised she was to find that Larry’s “poor old woman” was none other than Grandmother Howard herself, who wishing to find out the real characters of her grandsons, had chosen to come in this disguise to the North Shore city where they lived.

You will easily guess which of the three boys the Grandmother chose to be her companion. And oh! what a lovely Grandmother she was, as not only Larry, but his cousins too, found out. She always seemed to know exactly what a boy wanted, and still better, to give it to him.

Walter and Stanley often felt terribly ashamed of the selfish manner in which they had behaved, and wished they were more like Larry.

But Granny told them that it was “never too late to mend,” and they took her advice, and I am quite sure that at the present moment if they were to meet a poor old woman in distress by the roadside, they would not pass her by, as they once did Grandmother Howard.

The End