Taking A Walk

by Dwayne Phillips

She was walking across a U.S. highway crying, her face covered with tears. I saw her first and pointed to her to show my wife. My wife left the car immediately, pulled by a force to the little girl.

We had just completed our walking for the day and had set in our car. It was parked on a wide spot next to Route 11. Across the highway from our car was a large house with several sheds and other structures.

The little girl said her name was Lisa. She was six years old. She had stepped off the bus a few minutes before, gone to the front door of her home, and tried in vain to open the door. Her mother didn’t answer the door; her father didn’t answer the door. Surely they were home, because to a six-year-old girl someone is always home because someone has always been home. Except on this day the parents weren’t answering the door.

We walked across the highway to the house. We knocked on the front door loud and long, yet no one answered. I walked around the house knocking on the windows and doors that I found. My wife stayed with Lisa on the front porch consoling her and trying to learn more.

Lisa told us that a man named Tony also lived on their place. He lived in a small place next to the main house. We knocked on the doors and windows there with the same silent response.

Lisa said that her grandfather worked at a tourist attraction up the road. We recognized the name of the place, but it was about ten miles from the house. She also said that Tony worked at the gas station nearby. We also recognized that name of it, and it was only a mile in the other direction.

We got in our car and drove Lisa to the gas station. I was scared. I could think of a thousand terrible outcomes of taking an unknown six-year-old girl for a ride down the highway. We also thought of a thousand-and-one terrible things that could happen if we left a six-year-old girl crying on the side of the road.

We found the gas station and we found Tony just as Lisa had described. Tony knew Lisa and confirmed her story. I was relieved, but this wasn’t complete. The gas station was one of those combined gas station and mega-stores that are more frequent along the Interstates these days. Tony was working, was to work another four hours, and couldn’t come from behind the cash register to take care of Lisa. He needed this job and was sure he would be fired if he neglected it.

Then a boy came up to us. He was ten and recognized Lisa from the school bus. He rode the same bus as Lisa everyday, but really didn’t know her. Another long, frightened sigh. Now what were we to do?

There were several state troopers in their cars out on the road in front of the gas station mega-store. Well, they weren’t right in front of the place, but a half mile down the road. Maybe they could help. Lisa was frightened at the thought of the police coming in. Would her parents be in trouble? Another pained sigh.

Then a woman came from the office behind the cashier stand. She was the mother of the ten-year-old boy. The boy had run to her after we had talked to him about Lisa. Thank God for mothers; thank God for local mothers in local neighborhoods.

This woman – in a manager’s uniform – said she would take care of Lisa. Lisa seemed comfortable with that. Finally, a sigh of relief. We left Lisa with Tony, the ten-year-old boy, and the boy’s mother the manager at the gas station and mega-store. I could think of a thousand-and-two things that could go wrong with that arrangement, but I could also think of a thousand-and-three things that could go right.

We never heard again from anyone about the little girl on the side of the road.

To this day, I don’t know if we did the right things. I trust that we did.

People often ask me why I walked 1,100 miles to Louisiana. I still don’t have a good answer other than I wanted to. Did God cause me to spend so much time just walking down a road? Maybe God used my wife and me and others here and there to care for a few people who needed a little caring now and then and here and there. People like the little girl on the side of the road.

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The names of the people I wrote here are not correct. The location is vague. I wrote it this way for the privacy of the people involved.