Image by 愚木混株 Cdd20 from Pixabay
Six-year-old Grayson Ludlow was the quietest of the seven Ludlow grandchildren, and when not doing the standard little-boy things of running around outside and playing with his siblings and friends, and the schoolwork he had, he could usually be found in the family Lego pile, building and building and building.
But, his cousin Col. H.F. Lee had figured Grayson out in a way Grayson did not yet understand … Grayson tended to take his little red wagon and move the Legos he wanted around, and so, without giving as much clue as his more talkative associates, kept up with everything he was curious about.
Col. Lee remembered this tendency about himself as a child … it was his start to becoming one of the top investigators in the world.
Grayson instinctively knew that his big Lee cousin understood him, and so quietly hung out with him a little more, often pulling up his little red wagon and setting up shop where his big cousin was working on things that required an hour or two to finish.
Col. Lee tended to listen to deep, non-drama news while doing early work, and that news generally went over the head of children, but Grayson and his biggest brother ten-year-old Andrew sometimes came to hang out. Andrew also resembled his Lee cousin but in a different way: he innately wanted to know anything that might help him be a more caring leader to his younger siblings and support to his big sister Eleanor. But Andrew was ten, and although he was a precocious reader on all subjects, he was not as precocious a listener to politics and economics.
That often left Grayson, who was a more proficient listener, to pick up what he could, and Col. Lee often made a point to ask him what he thought.
So, on this particular day, Col. Lee was listening to the analysis of some speeches from someone running for county supervisor, and he noticed that Grayson was paying attention. Afterward, the little boy started doing what his grandmother did when she did not approve: that slow shake of the head as she silently went on about her business.
“Don't like him, eh?” Col. Lee said.
“I don't know what the rest of all that is about,” he said, “but I build stuff, and I know what a door is for.”
“You don't think he can open the door to the future for us?” Col. Lee said.
“He doesn't own the future, so, no,” Grayson said. “That's not how this works. You got to get permits to build stuff, and Jesus is not giving out permits to the future for somebody to put a door on so he gets to say who comes through.”
“That's right, for the Lord says about Himself that He opens, and no man shuts, and shuts, and no man opens. Guess I'm not voting for that guy who doesn't know he can't get a permit for that.”
“Because we know better, Cousin Harry,” Grayson said. “You go for people who don't get permits, and everything they touch falls down.”
“He's running for county supervisor,” Col. Lee said.
“I don't know what all that is, but he really needs to run back to preschool and Sunday School and start over.”
“Yeah, that's a Ludlow all right,” Grayson's grandfather Capt. R.E. Ludlow would say between peals of uproarious laughter when his colonel cousin shared the incident with him. “The brutal honesty – that's definitely a grandson of mine!”