“
As we drove to school, my dad fished a handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to me.
“We hope you will come home now, Lindsay,” he said. “We sure miss you. The place doesn’t seem the same without our girl. How about it?”
It was hard for me to speak, because I was still crying a little.
“I want to,” I managed to say, “but I can’t turn over the animals to that man. He’d kill them. I can’t obey the law, no matter what. I’ll go to jail first.”
We were at school by then, and my dad parked the car and turned to me.
“Wipe your eyes and look at me, Lindsay. I have something to say to you.”
I did as he said.
“I’m really proud of you, my girl. You are very young to take a stand against the law as a matter of conscience, but I see that that is what you are doing. The law is not going to excuse you for it, however. People who break laws, even bad laws, must pay the penalty. Yet, sometimes, people of conscience are willing to stand up for what they believe is right, and willing to take the punishment for doing so. As a result, they call attention to laws that need to be changed. Still, they have to pay a price for their belief. Do you understand that?”
“I think so.”
“Here’s an example. More than twenty years before you were born, African-American people in the South refused to obey unjust laws that said they could not sit in the front of a bus or eat in an all-white restaurant. Well, they defied those laws and sat where they pleased. And hundreds of them were hauled off and put into jails for breaking the law. Well, pretty soon the jails were full, and the entire country had heard about what was going on. Almost everybody sided with the African-American cause and demanded that the unjust laws be changed. So, in the end, the law was changed. That kind of lawbreaking is called civil disobedience.”
“Is that what Greta and I are doing?”
“I think so. If I have heard you right, you said that you would be willing to go to jail to protect your animals. That’s very brave of you, and I can’t ask you to act against your conscience. Now are you ready to come home again?”
At that moment, I loved my dad so much that I couldn’t say anything. I just threw my arms around him and kissed him. Then I got out of the car and went into the school quickly. I needed time to wash my face before going to class.
”
”