The Children's Story Read Free Page A

But there was still no candy.
    Because the New Teacher was disappointed, the children were very disappointed. Then she said, “Perhaps we’re using the wrong name.” She thought a moment and then said, “Instead of saying ‘God,’ lets say ‘Our Leader.’ Let’s pray to Our Leader for candy. Let’s pray very hard and don’t open your eyes till I say.”
    So the children shut their eyes tightly and prayed very hard, and as they prayed, the New Teacher took out some candy from her pocket and quietly put a piece on each child’s desk. She did not notice Johnny—alone of all the children—watching her through his half-closed eyes.
    She went softly back to her desk and the prayer ended, and the children opened their eyes and they stared at the candy and they were overjoyed.
    “I’m going to pray to Our Leader every time,” Mary said excitedly.
    “Me too,” Hilda said. “Could we eat Our Leader’s candy now, teacher?”
    “Oh, let’s, please, please, please.”
    “So Our Leader answered your prayers, didn’t he?”
    “I saw you put the candy on our desks!” Johnny burst out. “ I saw you … I didn’t close my eyes, and I saw you. You had ’em in your pocket. We didn’t get them with praying. You put them there.”
    All the children, appalled, stared at him and then at their New Teacher. She stood at the front of the class and looked back at Johnny and then at all of them.
    “Yes, Johnny, you’re quite right. You’re a very, very wise boy. Children, I put the candy on your desks. So you know that it doesn’t matter whom you ask, whom you shut your eyes and ‘pray’ to—to God or anyone, even Our Leader—no one will give you anything. Only another human being.” She looked at Danny. “God didn’t give you the puppy you wanted. But if you work hard, I will. Only I or someone like me can give you things. Praying to God or anything or anyone for something is a waste of time.”
    “Then we don’t say prayers? We’re not supposed to say prayers?”
    The puzzled children watched her.
    “You can if you want to, children. If your daddies and mommies want you to. But we know, you and I, that it means nothing. That’s our secret.”
    “My dad says it’s wrong to have secrets from him.”
    “But he has secrets that he shares with your mommy and not with you, doesn’t he?”
    All the children nodded.
    “Then it’s not wrong for us to have a few secrets from them. Is it?”
    “I like having secrets. Hilda and me have lots of secrets,” Mary said.
    The New Teacher said, “We’re going to have lots of wonderful secrets together. You can eat your candy if you want to. And because Johnny was especially clever, I think we should make him monitor for the whole week, don’t you?”
    They all nodded happily and popped the candy into their mouths and chewed gloriously. Johnny was very proud as he chewed his candy; he decided that he liked his teacher very much. Because she told the truth. Because she was right about fear. Because she was right about God. He’d prayed many times for many things and never got them, and even the one time he did get the skates, he knew his dad had heard him and had put them under his bed for his birthday and pretended he hadn’t heard him. I always wondered why He didn’t listen, and all the time He wasn’t there, he thought.
    Johnny sat back contentedly, resolved to work hard and listen and not to have wrong thoughts like Dad.
    The teacher waited for them to finish their candy. This was what she had been trained for, and she knew that she would teach her children well and that they would grow up to be good citizens. She looked out of the window, at the sun over the land. It was a good land, and vast. A land to breathe in. But she was warmed not by the sun but by the thought that throughout the school and throughout the land all children, all men and all women were being taught with the same faith, with variations of the same procedures. Each according to his age