Brotherhood

Several years ago there appeared a newspaper article about a little boy who had wandered from his South Dakota home. His parents couldn’t find him. State Police, Boy Scouts, friends and neighbors all joined in the search. For three days, hundreds of people moved through the prairie, hoping to find the boy before he succumbed to the elements. On the morning of the fourth day, one of the searchers said, “Let’s get organized in one long line. We’ll join hands and sweep up and down the prairie until we find the boy. He can’t have gone very far.” The searchers formed a line a quarter of a mile long. They made an impressive sight as they began to move through the prairie holding hands. On the third sweep they found the boy. The cold prairie nights had taken their toll. He was lying dead, in a small ditch behind some brush. Gently, the boy’s body was carried to where his mother was waiting. When they…