The little boy stood dirty and tattered on the
bustling city street. Behind him was a tall construction fence guarding a bustling
work site. He seemed to be by himself.
People walked a wide path to avoid the little boy's imploring eyes. They did not
want to be near him. He looked dirty and probably smelled.
Passing him was a long parade of people. Well dressed, hurrying to get to where they
thought they needed to be. All ignoring the plight of the little boy. The
dirty, ragged little boy.stood alone. No one even took a moment to ask if he was
alright.
Finally a tall man came along who did pause to discern the boy's plight. He set
his briefcase down beside him, and asked the little boy if he was alright.
"Please Mister," the little boy said. "Could you just lift me up so I
can see if my father is there."
He pointed in the direction of the construction site on the other side of the fence.
The tall stranger wavered.
The little boy appeared unkempt, his clothes were tattered, but something touched the tall
stranger's heart. He stooped down and picked the little boy up, then he boosted him
up high so he could see over the construction fence.
Oddly, the boy seemed as light as a feather in the stranger's hands. He expected to
smell a stench as he picked up the boy , but instead a strange sweetness lingered in his
nostrils.
"Look out below," rang out a worker's voice., just as a heavy metal
beam came crashing down to the sidewalk.
It ended up landing close enough to the tall stranger for him to reach out and touch
it. The vibration it caused when hitting the ground almost knocked him off his feet.
He glanced at his brief case and it was crushed beneath the weight of the fallen
beam. If he had not stopped, and stooped down to pick up the little boy, he too would have
been crushed.
The little boy, he suddenly remembered. He was holding the little boy when the beam
fell. The boy was nowhere to be found. No one ever saw him there again.
The tall man asked the foreman of the construction crew, who came racing to the
scene of the near fatal accident, if any of the workers had a son who might have come by
fitting the description of the little boy, but none had.
The tall man never forgot the sweet scent he smelled when he picked up that little one
that everyone else rejected, picked him up so that he might see his father.
It was when he lifted up the son that he was saved.
The tall man never forgot that day or the sweet smell of his salvation.
