The Hidden Hand

We have talked about the innocence of children and how that innocence can be related to God and His son when He said, “let the little children come to me”. This struck out to me in the text on page 179 when Old Hurricane first found out that the “newsboy, [his] saucy little prince of patches” was in fact actually Capitola who dressed as a boy in order to succeed in finding work to earn money for food. Old Hurricane, under his violent and stubborn exterior actually feels for her when she looked at him and her expression “appealed to the rugged heart of the old man.” We are taught that children are the innocence of life and are to be protected at all costs. Well, Old Hurricane definitely puts his protection in action when he defends Capitola saying that the Recorder that a young girl dressed any way should be treated “with the delicacy due to womanhood…and the tenderness owed to childhood…for she is but a bit of a poor, friendless, motherless, fatherless child, lost and wandering in your great Babylon!” Old Hurricane’s defense is somewhat of showing him as a Savior. He, like Jesus, is not only defending Capitola from her persecutors because she is but an innocent girl, but also claiming her as his own, which is like when Jesus said, “let the little children come to me.” Old Hurricane becomes the protection and shelter that Capitola has been waiting for and deserves. He did not judge her, but invited her to all he had, just as God tells us in the Bible; and Old Hurricane, like God, is the Hidden Hand that helps those innocents in need.