“A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.” (Prov. 17:22)
We got to the gate and I tried to push the latch up with my nose, but it was stuck. Marvin sat up on the top of the gate and tried to pull it up with his hands and tail but it wouldn’t budge.
Suddenly Spots said “Everybody stand back!” and he turned and kicked the latch with both back feet.
The gate flew open and we ran to the tree where Chester was tied.
Chester jumped in fear when he saw Marvin and me, but Spots mooed to him not to be afraid. We were there to rescue him and he needed to be very quiet.
Marvin tried to untie the rope from the tree, but he said, “It‘s too tight.”
He and I both tried to bite through the rope, but it was too thick.
Suddenly Marvin said, “I have an idea!” He took the bag from around his neck and rummaged through it until he pulled out the funny glass with the handle.
“When I was playing around with this,” Marvin said, “I found something special that it can do.”
He held up the glass so that the sunlight would shine through it. The sunlight shining through the glass made a tiny white dot on the rope, and the rope began to smoke.
It wasn’t long before the rope burnt through and Chester was free!
We all ran out the gate and crouched down beside the house before crossing the street.
Marvin whispered in my ear, “What do we do now? What do we do with Chester? We can’t leave him loose out here to get hit by a car or chased by a strange animal.”
“I have an idea,” I said. “Let’s pray to the Creator that it works.”
I sat on our front porch and barked as loud as I could.
My barking woke Mom from her nap and she opened the door to let me in. Instead of running inside, I ran off the porch and barked even louder at the front gate near our truck.
“Jake, why aren’t you coming inside?” Mom asked. “And what are you barking at so loud…?”
She didn’t finish her sentence, but instead stepped out onto the porch with her mouth wide open, looking towards our front gate.
“Raymond,” she said. “Wake up and look out the front window. You’re not going to believe what you see.”
What they were looking at was Chester, standing outside of the fence and next to our truck.
His rope was tied to our front gate in the strangest of knots, and my water bowl was lying at his feet. “Baaaaa” he said as he looked toward Mom.
Dad came out on the front porch and sat in his white rocker.
“That’s one of the goats from across the street,” Dad said. “But what’s he doing over here? And why did someone tie him to our front gate?”
“And what is Jake’s water bowl doing out there by his feet?” Mom asked. “Jake would never let someone come inside the fence and take his water bowl.”
They both slowly turned and looked at me, but I just sat still, wagging my tail, and looking as innocent as I knew how.
“This seems strangely familiar,” Mom said. “It reminds me of when I looked out the kitchen window and saw Jake’s water bowl out under the cedar tree next to him.”
“I guess when his owners get home, we’ll just have to take him back across the street,” Dad said.
“But he’s so cute,” said Mom.
This was what I had hoped for!
I knew that my Mom, the same silver haired kind faced lady that had mercy on me, would have mercy on Chester.
“Look,” Mom said.
“He has a rope tied around his neck, and that’s just not right. And someone tied him to our gate, as if we were supposed to have him. Maybe they don’t want him anymore. We could put him in our back field. Couldn’t you talk to them when they get home?”
Mom put Chester out some more water, and when the men who lived across the street came home, Dad walked across the street with his walker.
He talked with them for a few moments, and then I saw Dad pull out his wallet, take out some money, and hand it to them.
When he came back from across the street, he and Mom led Chester through the yard and out into our back field.
As we walked across the yard, I noticed Spots standing by the chicken coop and watching, and I saw two little black eyes shining out from under the pile of branches.
I knew that Spots and Marvin were feeling the same way that I was. I was so happy that I felt like my heart would burst.
“One for all,” I thought. “And all for one.”
Mom left late that afternoon in the truck and came back with two big troughs and a huge bag of food for Chester. They set the troughs out in the field and filled them with water and food.
Chester was having the best time.
He was running and exploring, eating the leaves from the trees and the green grass in the field.
Over the next few days it was very busy around our house.
Daddy had the same men that had rebuilt the cow’s barn after the fire come out and build a small barn for Chester.
Daddy asked Dr. Ann to make a house call and check Chester to see if he was healthy. She came out, gave him some shots, and said that he was fine.
The Rescue Club voted and decided that Spots should teach Chester how to speak pig, and it wasn’t long before Chester could oink and grunt with the rest of us.
We invited him to join the club, but he said that he was too old for all that excitement.
He just wanted to live the rest of his life in peace, getting to know us and his wonderful new parents, and enjoying his beautiful new home.
By the way, Mom didn’t know what to call him, so she decided to name him Chester. She said that with his beard and bushy eyebrows, he reminded her of an Uncle Chester she once knew.
Now how could she have known that Chester was already his name?
It seems that some things are just meant to be. Maybe our rescue plan was really “Someone” else’s plan to begin with.
Next- PARABLES FOR THE YOUNG AT HEART: Jake and the Pot-Belly Bully
Available for $6.99 at Amazon, the IBookstore, Lulu.com, and BarnesandNoble.com
As Seen Through the Eyes of Faith 