A Christmas Orange

However impossible and elusive the Christmas message may seem some years, I aways take great comfort in this story of a little orphan boy.

Jake was a resident of an orphan's home. One of ten children supported by what contributions the home could secure on a continuous struggle. There was very little to eat. It was seldom very warm in the winter time, for fuel was expensive. But at Christmas time there always seemed to be a little more to eat and the home seemed a little bit warmer, and it was a time for more than the usual enjoyment. But,more than this, there was an orange. At Christmas each child received an orange. The only time of the year that such a rare thing was provided-and it was coveted by each child like no other thing they had ever possessed. They would save it for several days. Admiring it, feeling it, loving it, and contemplating the moment when they would eat it. Truly it was the "piece de resistance" to the Christmas time, and the year, for many would wait until the New Year's Day or later to eat it. Often times it would start to dry out and shrivel before they would eat it in order to salvage what they could.

This Christmas Day Jake had offended the rules or authority of the home in some manner and his punishment was the loss of the orange privilege. After a year of waiting for this rare occasion, for the most desired of all rewards, it was to be denied. Although the offense was rather minor, still it was an infraction of the rules that must govern in regulated society. Jake spent Christmas Day empty and alone-it even seemed that the other children did not want to associate with the person who did not have an orange.

Nighttime arrived and this was worst of all. Jake could not sleep. There was no love in the world. There was no forgiving. And certainly there could be no God that would permit a contrite little soul to suffer so much by himself. Silently he sobbed for the future of mankind; and the world perhaps, but mostly because he did not have an orange like the other kids did.

A soft hand placed on Jake's shoulder startled him momentarily and an object was quickly shoved into his hand. The donor into the dark of the room leaving Jake with what he did not immediately identify as an orange. Not a regular run-of-the-orchard orange, but one fabricated from segments of nine oranges. Nine other highly prized oranges that would of out of necessity be eaten this day instead of several days hence.