A Christmas
Story
It was just a few more days until Christmas in San Francisco, and the shopping
downtown was starting to get to us. I remember crowds of people waiting
impatiently for slow-moving buses and streetcars on those little cement islands
in the middle of the street. Most of us were loaded down with packages, and it
looked like many of us were beginning to wonder if all those countless friends
and relatives actually deserved so many gifts in the first place. This was not
the Christmas spirit I'd been raised with.
When I finally found myself virtually shoved up the steps of a jammed streetcar,
the idea of standing there packed like a sardine the whole way home was almost
more than I could take. What I would have given for a seat! I must have been in
some kind of exhausted daze because as people gradually got off, it took me a
while to notice that there was room to breathe again.
Then I saw something out of the corner of my eye. A small, dark-skinned boy - he
couldn't have been more than five or six - tugged on a woman's sleeve and asked,
"Would you like a seat?" He quietly led her to the closest free seat he could
find. Then he set out to find another tired person. As soon as each rare, new
seat became available, he would quickly move through the crowd in search of
another burdened woman who desperately needed to rest her feet.
When I finally felt the tug on my own sleeve, I was absolutely dazzled by the
beauty in this little boy's eyes. He took my hand, saving, "Come with me," and I
think I'll remember that smile as long as I live. As I happily placed my heavy
load of packages on the floor, the little emissary of love immediately turned to
help his next subject.
The people on the streetcar, as usual, had been studiously avoiding each other's
eyes, but now they began to exchange sly glances and smiles. A businessman
offered a section of newspaper to the stranger next to him; three people stooped
to return a gift that had tumbled to the floor. And now people were speaking to
one another. That little boy had tangibly changed something - we all relaxed
into a subtle feeling of warmth and actually enjoyed the trip through the final
stops along the route.
I didn't notice when the child got off. I looked up at one point and he was
gone. When I reached my stop I practically floated off that streetcar, wishing
the driver a happy holiday, noticing the sparkling Christmas lights on my street
in a fresh, new way. Or maybe I was seeing them in an old way, with the same
open wonder I felt when I was five or six. I thought, "So that's what they mean
by 'And a little child shall lead them...'"
by Beverly M. Bartlett
Reprinted by permission of Beverly M. Bartlett (c), 1996 from
Chicken Soup for the Woman's Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor
Hansen, Jennifer Read Hawthorne and Marci Shimoff.
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