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Bobby was getting cold sitting out in
his back yard in the snow.
Bobby didn't wear boots; he didn't like them
and anyway he didn't
own any. The thin sneakers he wore had a few
holes in them and
they did a poor job of keeping out the cold.
Bobby had been in his backyard for about an hour already.
And, try as he might, he could not come up
with an idea for his
mother's Christmas gift. He shook his
head as he thought,
"This is useless, even if I do come up with
an idea,
I don't have any money to spend."
Ever since his father had passed away three years ago,
the family of five had struggled. It wasn't because his
mother didn't
care, or try, there just never seemed to be
enough.
She worked nights at the hospital, but
the small wage that she was earning could only be
stretched so far.
What the family lacked in money and material things,
they more than made up for in love and family
unity.
Bobby had two older and one younger sister,
who ran the household in their mother's absence.
All three of his sisters had already made beautiful gifts
for
their mother. Somehow it just wasn't fair.
Here it was Christmas Eve already, and he had
nothing.
Wiping a tear from his eye, Bobby kicked the snow and
started
to walk down to the street where the shops and
stores were.
It wasn't easy being six without a father,
especially when he needed a man to talk to.
Bobby walked from shop to shop, looking into each
decorated window. Everything seemed so
beautiful and so
out of reach. It was starting to get dark and
Bobby reluctantly turned
to walk home when suddenly his eyes caught the
glimmer of the
setting sun's rays reflecting off of something along
the curb.
He reached down and discovered a shiny dime.
Never before has anyone felt so wealthy as Bobby
felt at that moment. As he held his new found
treasure,
a warmth spread throughout his entire body and
he walked into the
first store he saw. His excitement quickly turned
cold when
salesperson after salesperson told him that he could not
buy
anything with only a dime.
He saw a flower shop and went inside to wait in line.
When the shop owner asked if he could help
him, Bobby presented
the dime and asked if he could buy one flower
for his mother's
Christmas gift. The shop owner looked at Bobby
and his ten cent
offering. Then he put his hand on Bobby's Shoulder
and said to him,
"You just wait here and I'll see what I can do for
you."
As Bobby waited, he looked at the beautiful flowers and
even though he was a boy, he could see why mothers and
girls liked flowers. The sound of the door
closing as the last
customer left, jolted Bobby back to reality.
All alone in the shop,
Bobby began to feel alone and afraid.
Suddenly the shop owner came out and moved to the
counter.
There, before Bobby's eyes, lay twelve long
stem, red roses,
with leaves of green and tiny white flowers
all tied together with a
big silver bow. Bobby's heart sank as the
owner picked them up
and placed them gently into a long white box.
"That will be ten cents young man" the shop
owner said
reaching out his hand for the dime. Slowly,
Bobby moved his hand
to give the man his dime. Could this be true?
No one else would
give him a thing for his dime! Sensing the
boy's reluctance,
the shop owner added, "I just happened to have
some roses
on sale for ten cents a dozen. Would you like them?"
This time Bobby did not hesitate, and when the man
placed the long box into his hands, he knew it was true.
Walking out the door that the owner was holding for
Bobby,
he heard the shop keeper say, "Merry Christmas,
son."
As he returned inside, the shop keepers wife walked out.
"Who were you talking to back there and
where are the
roses you were fixing?"
Staring out the window, and blinking the tears from his
own
eyes, he replied, "A strange thing
happened to me this morning.
While I was setting up things to open the
shop, I thought I heard
a voice telling me to set aside a dozen of my best roses
for a special
gift. I wasn't sure at the time whether I had
lost my mind or what,
but I set them aside anyway. Then just a few
minutes ago,
a little boy came into the shop and wanted to
buy a flower for
his mother with one small dime.
"When I looked at him, I saw myself, many years ago.
I too,
was a poor boy with nothing to buy my mother a Christmas
gift.
A bearded man, whom I never knew, stopped me
on the street
and told me that he wanted to give me ten
dollars.
"When I saw that little boy tonight, I knew who that
voice was,
and I put together a dozen of my very best
roses."
The shop owner and his wife hugged each other tightly,
and as they Stepped out into the bitter cold
air,
they somehow didn't feel cold at all.
Author Unknown
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Counter added August 20-08
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