The Little Friend

“Why is it so important to have goals in life, boys and girls?” As he waited for an answer, he squared and re-squared a small stack of paper on the podium, so that the jewel in his massive gold class ring caught and flashed red in the light. “Let’s think about this, shall we? Without goals, we aren’t motivated, are we? Without goals, we’re not financially prosperous! Without goals, we can’t achieve what Christ wants for us as Christians and members of the community!”

Harriet, he noticed with a bit of a start, was glaring at him rather aggressively.

“No sir!” Mr. Dial clapped his hands. “Because goals keep us focused on the things that matter! It’s important for all of us, no matter what age we are, to set goals for ourselves on a yearly and weekly and even hourly basis, or else we don’t have the get-up-and-go to haul our bee-hinds from out in front the television and earn a living when we grow up.”

As he spoke, he began to pass out paper and colored pens. It did no harm to try to force a little work ethic down some of these little Ratliffs and Odums. They were certainly exposed to nothing of the sort at home, sitting around living off the government the way most of them did. The exercise he was about to propose to them was one Mr. Dial himself had participated in, and found extremely motivational, from a Christian Salesmanship conference he had attended in Lynchburg, Virginia, the summer before.

“Now I want us all to write down a goal we want to achieve this summer,” said Mr. Dial. He folded his hands into a church steeple and rested his forefingers upon his pursed lips. “It may be a project, a financial or a personal achievement … or it may be some way to help your family, your community, or your Lord. You don’t have to sign your name if you don’t want to—just draw a little symbol at the bottom that represents who you are.”

Several drowsy heads jerked up in panic.

“Nothing too complicated! For instance,” said Mr. Dial, screwing his hands together, “you might draw a football if you enjoy sports! Or a happy face if you enjoy making people smile!”

He sat down again; and, since the children were looking at their papers and not at him, his wide, small-toothed grin soured slightly at the edges. No, it didn’t matter how you tried with these little Ratliffs and Odums and so forth: it was useless to think you could teach them a thing. He looked out over the dull little faces, sucking listlessly on the ends of their pencils. In a few years, these little unfortunates would be keeping Mr. Dial and Ralph busy in the repossession business, just like their cousins and brothers were doing right now.

————

Hely leaned over and tried to see what Harriet had written on her paper. “Hey,” he whispered. For his personal symbol he had dutifully drawn a football, then sat staring for the better part of five minutes in dazed silence.

“No talking back there,” said Mr. Dial.

With an extravagant exhalation, he got up and collected the children’s work. “Now then,” he said, depositing the papers in a heap on the table. “Everybody file up and choose a paper—no,” he snapped as several children sprang up from their chairs, “not run

, like monkeys. One at a time.”

Without enthusiasm, the children shuffled up to the table. Back at her seat, Harriet struggled to open the paper she’d chosen, which was folded to the excruciating tininess of a postage stamp.

From Hely, unexpectedly, a snort of laughter. He shoved the paper he’d chosen at Harriet. Beneath a cryptic drawing (a headless blotch on stick legs, part furniture, part insect, depicting what animal or object or even piece of machinery Harriet could not guess) the gnarled script tumbled rockily down the paper at a forty-five-degree angle. My gol, read Harriet, with difficulty, is Didy tak me to Opry Land.

“Come on now,” Mr. Dial was saying up front. “Anybody start. It doesn’t matter who.”

Harriet managed to pick her paper open. The writing was Annabel Arnold’s: rotund and labored, with elaborate curlicues on the g’s and y’s.

my goal!

my goal is to say a little prayer every day that God

will send me a new person to help!!!!

Harriet stared at it balefully. At the bottom of the page, two capital B’s, back to back, formed an inane butterfly.

“Harriet?” said Mr. Dial suddenly. “Let’s start with you.”

With a flatness that she hoped would convey her contempt, Harriet read the curlicued vow aloud.

“Now, that’s an outstanding goal,” said Mr. Dial warmly. “It’s a call to prayer, but it’s a call to service, too. Here’s a young Christian who thinks about others in church and communi—Is something funny back there?”

The pallid snickerers fell silent.

Mr. Dial said, in amplified voice: “Harriet, what does this goal reveal about the person that wrote it?”

Hely tapped Harriet’s knee. To the side of his leg, he made an inconspicuous little thumbs-down gesture: loser.

“Is there a symbol?”