Not long ago a little girl was caressing her dear old nurse, and when she
caught sight of the deep scars in her hands she asked, "How did you get
these scars?" The nurse looked at her very tenderly and then she said,
"When you were a baby, a fire broke out one night when you were asleep in
your cot. I plunged my hands into the flames and lifted you out." The
child's eyes were full of tears as she looked at the dear scarred hands,
the hands that had been wounded to save her.
Those scarred hands remind me of another story. One day, about thirty
years ago, some children were playing on a mountain in France, and their
merry peals of laughter attracted the notice of a shepherd lad who was
taking care of the sheep a little way off. Suddenly a wolf foaming at the
mouth came in sight. He saw it run madly down the mountain towards the
children. Without a moment's hesitation he rushed forward, seized the
wolf, and grappled with it. After a fierce struggle he managed to bind a
leather strap around its mouth, and then he killed it, but not before the
wolf, which was raving mad, had bitten him severely in the hand. This
occurred just at the time when Pasteur, the famous Paris doctor, had
discovered a remedy for hydrophobia. Without delay the shepherd lad who
had saved the lives of the children at such a cost was taken to Paris and
was cured. Hundreds of patients are sent to the Pasteur Institute at Paris
and when they ring the bell, the door is opened by an elderly man with a
scar on his hand.
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