The Bedtime Story Monster

     One day, a little boy named Larry had a bedtime story conundrum.  (That means he didn't know what to do.)  He HAD to have a bedtime story, or it just wouldn't work.  Going to bed, that is.  It was like a monster, this need.  Do you know how this bedtime story monster got tamed?  By having his sister tell him a story.  His sister was an old maid who had no children, who looked after him herself because their mother was dead.  Their father was, too.  She sat beside his bed in a rocking chair and told the following story on the day we are talking about:

     There was once a bad boy who didn't do anything he was told.  He was scared.  What if he was found out?  People would know how rude he'd been to his parents.  He had told them "no" all the time if they asked him to be polite.  He had run away when they tried to take him hand-in-hand across the street.  And so on.  But that was not all.  He was rude to his teachers too.  I wonder why?  Do you know?  He didn't know right from wrong.  That's all.  But one day Jesus came to see him and asked him to come home with him if he wasn't going to be better, and he was.

     And I was that boy, said he, wasn't I?  I knew you would make that into a story some day.

The End