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Subject: [FOLKLORE FAMILY] I had a GOOD Christmas!!

Last winter I was rushing around trying to do some last
minute Christmas shopping done. I was stressed out and
not thinking very fondly of the weather right then. It
was dark, cold, and wet in the parking lot.
As I was loading my car up, I noticed that I was missing
a receipt that I might need later. So, mumbling under my
breath, I retraced my steps to the mall entrance. As I
was searching the wet pavement for the lost receipt, I
heard a quiet sobbing.
The crying was coming from a poorly dressed boy of
about 12 years of age. He was short & thin and had no
coat - he was just wearing a ragged flannel shirt to
protect him from the cold night's chill.
Oddly enough, he was holding a hundred dollar bill in his
hand. Thinking that he had gotten lost from his parents,
I asked him what was wrong. In a voice hoarse & raw
from a sore throat, he told me his sad story.
He said that he came from a large family. He had three
brothers & four sisters. His father had died when he was
nine. His mother was poorly educated and worked two
full time jobs. She made very little to support her large
family.
Nevertheless, she had managed to save $200 to buy her
children some Christmas presents.
The young boy had been dropped off by his mother,
on the way to her second job. He was to use the money
to buy presents for all his siblings and hold back just
enough to take the bus home.
He had not even entered the mall when an older boy
grabbed one of the hundred dollar bills from his hand
and disappeared into the night.
"Why didn't you yell for help?" I asked.
The boy said, "I did."
"And nobody came to help you?" I queried.
The boy stared at the sidewalk and sadly shook his
head. "How loud did you scream?" I inquired.
The soft-spoken boy looked up and hoarsly croaked,
"Help me!", and I realized that with his sore throat,
absolutely no one could have heard that poor boy's
pitiful cry for help.
So I grabbed his other C-note and ran to my car.




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