The Tender Flame (2 page)

“Bye, Mother,” Lydia said. “I love you.”

“I love you too, honey.”

“I love you, Mom,” Billy said.

“And I love you, son.” Beverly rubbed her upper arms against the
cold as she watched her children walk as far as the road, then she moved inside and closed the door.

The Reynolds family lived two blocks from the schoolhouse. When Lydia and Billy were almost halfway to school, Lydia saw Frederick Kendall and Gerald George coming from between two houses.

“Uh-oh,” she said with a sigh. “Here come Gerald and Frederick. Just ignore them. Pretend they don’t exist.”

The older boys drew near, their feet crunching the snow. Gerald, who was the bigger of the two, grinned at Lydia and said, “Hello, sweetheart. You know, I think you’re absolutely the prettiest girl in all the world. Frederick and I were just arguing about which one of us you’d like to have walkin’ beside you to school.”

Lydia looked straight ahead, as did Billy.

“Aw, c’mon,” Frederick said. “Don’t play hard-to-get.”

Billy clenched his teeth and tried to ignore them, as his sister was doing. Gerald moved close to Lydia and rubbed his shoulder against hers.

“You two leave my sister alone!” Billy said. “She doesn’t want anything to do with either of you, so just go away!”

Frederick looked at Gerald and said, “I guess little brother didn’t get enough on Friday. Since he seems to like black eyes so much, I say let’s give him another one.”

“You two get away from us!” Lydia screamed.

Gerald laughed and put his arm around her, pulling her close. “I can stand it without your ugly little brother, but life without you is getting unbearable. How about a little ol’ kiss for Gerry?”

“Let go of me, Gerald!” Lydia tried to twist her shoulder from his grip.

He just laughed and held her more firmly. “Now, you know you like all this attention.”

“Move, kid, so I can hug her too,” Frederick said. “We want to know which one of us she likes best.”

Billy grabbed Gerald’s arm and yanked it from Lydia’s shoulder.
“Take your hands off my sister! Get away from her, you creep!”

Other schoolchildren looked on from a distance, but no one made a move to help.

Gerald stood over Billy, his eyes widening with anger. “If you’re man enough to make me get away from her, kid, hop to it!”

Billy glared at him, and Gerald turned back to Lydia and put his arm around her again. Lydia twisted from his grasp, but slipped and fell facedown in the snow. Billy started to help her up, and Frederick shoved the boy’s face into a nearby drift.

“Keep his face in the snow for a while,” Gerald said, as he took hold of Lydia’s arm. “Teach him a lesson.”

“Don’t you touch me!” Lydia said.

“Aw, c’mon, sweetheart. Let me help you up.” He took hold of both her arms.

“I said don’t touch me!”

Frederick relaxed his hold on Billy for just a moment, and Billy scrambled to his feet and lunged at Gerald, catching him slightly off balance. Gerald fell heavily in the snow, then jumped up and swore at Billy, threatening to beat him to a pulp.

“You aren’t going to beat anybody to a pulp, Gerald!” someone said.

All eyes went to sixteen-year-old Grant Smith, who stood with his feet apart and fists ready for action. While Frederick and Gerald stood motionless, Grant leaned over and helped Lydia to her feet.

“Thank you, Grant,” she said.

“Seems I heard Lydia screaming at you two to keep your hands off her,” Grant said. “You deaf?”

“We don’t have to take this from you, Grant,” Gerald said. “If we want to walk Lydia to school, it’s none of your business.”

“It’s my business if Lydia says she doesn’t want your company and you try to force yourselves on her.”

“Let’s teach him a lesson!” said Gerald, making a lunge for Grant.

Grant met Gerald with a fist square on the mouth. In the frosty air it sounded like an ax hitting a tree. Gerald fell sideways, and
Frederick stumbled over him but got up fast enough to catch another punch from Grant flat on the nose. He went down hard.

Billy was standing beside Lydia with an arm around her as Gerald got up, swearing at Grant. His lips were split and bleeding, and an upper front tooth was barely clinging to the gum. Gerald held a hand partially over his mouth and said, “Look what you did, Grant! You knocked my tooth loose!”

“You bother Lydia or Billy again,” Grant said, “and I’ll knock some more loose. You got that?”

Gerald did not reply. His attention went to Frederick, who was just getting up, his nose bleeding profusely.

“Grant,” Billy said, “they did this on Friday, and when I tried to fight them off, they gave me this black eye.”

Grant nodded. “They better never give you another one.” Then he asked Lydia, “You all right?”

“Yes, Grant, I’m fine.”

He turned back to the bullies. “I mean what I say: you two stay away from Lydia and don’t even think of doing anything else to Billy. If you do, what you just got will seem like nothing compared to what you’ll get then.”

Gerald ran a hand across his mouth, looked at the blood, and said, “We’ll tell Mr. Wilkins what you did.”

“Go ahead. I’ll tell him what you were doing when I did it too. You boys want him to hear that?”

Without a further word, the two boys turned and walked away.

“Guess we’d better get going,” Grant said to Lydia and Billy, “or we’ll be late for school.”

The three of them made their way as quickly as they could through the slippery snow, and Grant took hold of Lydia’s arm to keep her from falling.

That afternoon when school let out at 3:30, Billy was waiting outside Lydia’s classroom door when she came out. “Well, big sister,” he said,
“what did you learn in school today?”

Lydia smiled at him as they headed toward the school’s front door behind other students. “I learned that the seventh wonder of the world was not the Pharos lighthouse at Alexandria, Egypt, as some historians have stated, but the gigantic walls of Babylon. I learned that mathematics is not just the science of numbers, but also of space configurations; and I learned how to construct a sentence without ending it in a preposition.”

“That’s a lot for one day.”

Lydia giggled. “I also learned something else. This was before school this morning, though.”

“Mm-hmm?”

“I learned that Grant Smith is the most wonderful—”

Lydia’s words ended abruptly as she and Billy moved outside and she saw Grant standing there.

“Hello, Lydia, Billy,” he said with a smile. “Just thought I’d walk along with you, if it’s all right.”

“Yes, of course,” Lydia said, glancing at Billy’s sly grin.

When they reached the street at the edge of the schoolyard, they saw Gerald and Frederick standing beneath a big oak tree, its leafless branches silhouetted against the cold blue sky. There was fear in the two boys’ eyes, and they quickly looked away.

“I don’t think they’ll bother you anymore, Lydia,” Grant said.

She looked up at him and smiled. “Thanks to you.”

When they reached the end of the first block, Grant slowed his pace and said, “Do you want me to walk you all the way home?”

“That won’t be necessary, Grant,” Lydia said.

Billy looked over his shoulder. “No sign of you-know-who.”

“They know better,” Lydia said. “Thank you, Grant. See you in the morning.”

Beverly Reynolds greeted her children at the front door as they stomped snow from their shoes on the front porch then stepped
inside. “So how was school today?” she asked.

“School as usual,” Billy said.

“Yes, but before and after school was anything but usual,” Lydia said.

Beverly’s eyebrows arched. “You had trouble with Gerald and Frederick again?”

“Before school, yes. After school, no. And the reason we didn’t have trouble after school is what happened before school.”

Beverly’s gaze ran quickly between her children. “Well, take your wraps off and tell me about it. I don’t see any more black-and-blue marks on my boy, so whatever happened on the way to school today must’ve been better than what happened on the way home from school on Friday.”

“A whole lot better,” said Lydia, pulling off her stocking cap. “Daddy won’t have to talk to Gerald’s and Frederick’s parents. The problem is solved.”

“And who solved it?”

Billy finished hanging up his coat in the nearby closet and turned to take Lydia’s.

“Grant took care of it,” Lydia said.

“Grant?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What did he do?”

“Let’s sit down and we’ll tell you all about it.”

The “we” turned out to be mostly Lydia.

Billy got in a few words when Lydia finished telling Beverly about the bloody nose, cut lips, and loose tooth. “Tell you what, Mom,” he said, “those two were standing in front of the school when Grant started walking us home, and boy, did they look scared! They won’t come near us again.”

“Good for Grant,” Beverly said. “He sure is a nice boy. Your father and I will let him know how much we appreciate what he did.”

When Duane Reynolds came home from work an hour later, he
learned about the morning’s incident and was glad to hear what Grant Smith had done. He thanked Billy for once again coming to his sister’s aid and said he was proud of him for standing up to the two bullies, both older and bigger than he.

When mother and daughter went to the kitchen to start supper, Billy said, “Dad, could we talk for a few minutes?”

“Of course, son. Let’s go sit in the parlor.”

As soon as they got comfortable, Duane said, “So, what’s on your mind?”

“Well, I was just wondering … since Grant’s a Christian and all, was it right for him to, you know, do what he did today?”

“You mean to use force when he came to your rescue?”

“Yeah, that.”

“Just because we’re Christians, son, doesn’t mean we have to let people walk all over us.”

“But why do people who aren’t Christians think we’re supposed to let them do anything they want to us, and we’re just supposed to take it?”

“Part of it may be that they misunderstand Jesus’ words when He said, ‘I am meek and lowly in heart.’ They think ‘meek’ means weak. They think ‘lowly’ means He was to be walked on. Now, it’s true that when it came time for Jesus to be crucified, He did not raise a hand to protect Himself. He went as a lamb to the slaughter, Isaiah tells us. He had come to die on the cross for sinners. Therefore, He let them take Him, beat Him, spit on Him, and crucify Him. But when the day comes that sinners who rejected Him must face Him in judgment, He will pour out His wrath on them. He certainly showed that He was no pushover when He went into the temple in Jerusalem and drove out the money changers. What they did was wrong, and He lifted up His hand against them.”

Billy nodded. “So what Gerald and Frederick did to Lydia and me was wrong, and Grant was right to lift up his hand against them.”

“We’re to be meek and lowly like Jesus, and we certainly should
never be troublemakers. But when trouble comes our way, we are not to be cowardly. Jesus was meek in the gentle and patient sense of the word, but He stood up for what was right in the face of all kinds of opposition, and He strongly stood against all that was wrong. His followers should be the same way.

“If Grant had stood by and let those bullies do what they wanted to you and Lydia, Grant would have shown cowardice. Christians are supposed to stand for what is right, and against what is wrong. That’s what Grant did.”

Billy nodded. “Grant is a good Christian, Dad. I know he witnesses for Jesus at school and has invited kids to church. Some have come and been saved.”

“Grant is a fine boy, son, and I think as a family we will go over to the Smith house after supper. I think your mother and I should express our appreciation to Grant in the presence of his parents and sisters.”

I
T WAS A FROSTY NIGHT
with a bright winter moon reflecting off the snow, making it easy for the Reynolds family to see as they walked the short distance to the Smith home. The frozen landscape of surrounding hills stretched into the distance like lumps of cold silver dotted with tall trees and bordered in black.

A lone kerosene lantern burned beside the front door, illuminating the snow-laden porch, and the soft glow from the parlor windows offered the Reynoldses a warm welcome. As soon as Duane knocked on the door, the sound of muffled footsteps was heard.

“Well, look who’s here!” Scott Smith said upon opening the door. “Come in! Come in!” He hustled the Reynoldses into the warmth of the cozy home and called toward the parlor door, “Marjorie! Kids! We’ve got company!”

Marjorie Smith’s eyes widened with pleasure when she saw who had come visiting, and she embraced Beverly Reynolds as Grant and his sisters came through the parlor door behind her. Thirteen-year-old Sharon and eleven-year-old Theresa moved to Lydia’s side, and Grant shook hands with Duane.

Scott reached to take young Billy’s coat and eyed the boy’s black eye. “Uh-oh! Looks like you and Lydia got into a fight, and she won!”

Billy chuckled. “She’s a tough gal, Mr. Smith, that’s for sure!”

“Let’s go into the parlor, folks,” Scott said, ushering them toward the family room.