Joe and His Rose

Joe and his little sister Bess lived in a little gray cottage on the edge of town. Mother and Father had died, and Grandmother had to work at the dress shop all day, so Joe took care of Bess. He would tidy up the rooms and heat up the breakfast Grandmother had left them. After Bess ate, Joe had to find something to keep her busy or else she would get into mischief. If they finished their chores early, Joe got out the blocks and made towers and villages with her. Sometimes they would read a story or draw pictures, but what Bess liked best was to go outside.

The cottage was small, and so was the yard, but Joe and Grandmother tried to make it pretty. In the spring, they would plant marigolds under the window, and there were bright red tulips and yellow daffodils by the edge of the lawn. Bess loved to pick the flowers and make bouquets for the table. Sometimes she got the stems too long or too short, but Joe didn’t scold her. She was little; soon she would learn. But Bess didn’t seem to learn very fast and often got into trouble. Joe was always patient and kind to his little sister. When she tore her dress and got mud on her socks trying to climb the fence, he took her inside to wash up and only said, “Bess, you’d better be more careful.”

Now Joe had planted a climbing rose bush by the front gate. The neighbor had given it to him and said it would have beautiful pink flowers in the spring, but that had been two years ago and no roses appeared. Still, Joe was patient and always watered and weeded around the bush first thing in the morning. It stretched taller and twisted far across the fence, but all it grew were leaves.

“Why are there no flowers?” asked Bess, sticking two dirty fingers in her mouth. “I want flowers for my b’kay.”

“Why don’t you pick the marigolds or tulips?” said Joe as he hoed weeds by the gate.

“All gone,” said Bess. And they were.

So Joe told Bess that the rose bush was stubborn and wild. “We must be patient and tame it,” he said. Together they dug up rotted leaves in the woodlot and piled them around the bush. Joe pruned the wildest vines, and Bess sloshed a little pail of water over it. And they waited.

One morning after breakfast, Bess disappeared. Joe looked in the house and in the yard, under the bushes and in the woodlot, but she was nowhere to be found. This could have made him very cross, for he had planned on going to the blueberry patch to earn a little money, but he was not. You see, Joe was living for Jesus, and he knew that Jesus would help him if he asked. So Joe prayed, and then went down the street. At each house he stopped and asked about his little sister, but no one had seen her. Finally, by the last house on the street, he saw her climbing in an apple tree. Bess was a sad little girl coming home that morning, for Joe said he must tell Grandmother about her naughtiness.

“Oh,” said Bess, “I will be good, ’cept it is always hard to do it.” Joe thought he should be gruff and scold her more, but he remembered that Jesus was always kind and loving. So he told instead that he would help her, if she would just listen and obey.

“Come,” he said, “for maybe there’s time yet to pick blueberries!” And so they hurried down the road with their tin pails. They were hot and dusty that afternoon, but they came back with a pail of berries and Joe had two dollars in his pocket.

When they reached the gate, Joe stopped to check his rose bush, for he had forgotten it in his rush that morning. “Oh, see!” said he to Bess. “Come look right away!” Bess looked and saw it, too—a beautiful soft rose, just opening up.

“So pretty,” she said softly. “But it took so long.”

“I did say we had to be patient, didn’t I?” Joe said, and laughed. “You have been my wild little bush, too, but I think you’ll grow some roses yet.” And he gave Bess a little squeeze.