A BOY AND 2 DOGS

From time to time there is a news story that touches the hearts of newspaper readers. Such was the story this week of a 10-year-old boy in Southwest Missouri who strayed from his home during a cold snap and was missing for three days.

The boy, who has Down's Syndrome, was found by ecstatic searchers alive and well. The boy's survival is credited to a couple of stray dogs who apparently stayed with the boy and slept with him, keeping him from freezing to death.

It is too easily said in this callous age that we humans have lost our ability to care for or about one another. So much misery and deceit surround us that the abundance of good in this world is too often clouded over. But the condition of the world -- or the worldliness that we find so deplorable -- isn't new. Even though those of us who inhabit the waning years of the 20th century look for modern causes of man's depravity, the fact is that good has always done battle with evil.

When we let whatever is bad in our lives overtake the good around us, a pervasive mood settles in. It is at times like this that a decent story about dogs and a small boy remind us that we humans, as frail as we are, can find warmth, compassion and strong emotions in such a simple tale.

What makes such stories so special is that the events occur so naturally. No one contrived to have stray pets look after a lost boy. No one planned for those three days of not knowing -- the kind of not knowing that strikes terror into any parent's heart -- to have such a happy ending. No one scheduled the outpouring of concern and caring for one young lad lost in the woods.

Countless prayers were answered when a searcher found the boy in a dry river bed, alive and, considering the circumstance, in good health.

Most accounts of this story have the dogs as the heroes. True, the dogs instinctively -- and perhaps in answer to many of those prayers -- kept the boy warm and safe when he was far from the loving care of his parents.

But anyone who was touched by the story can be counted as a hero. Whenever we humans have the capacity to get teary eyed over this wonderful story, we also have the capacity to change the world for good. If it takes a couple of dogs and a lost boy to remind us of the needs of the world, so be it.