The year was 1893. A little girl got picked up by her step-father and carried home. This action, as simple as it was, served as the dramatic conclusion to a Sherlock Holmes story.

This year is 2008. A different story is being told in America, a much bigger story on a much grander stage. Some might say it only proves to show that the story of the little girl was too  much the period-piece and out of date, one more reason to consign Sherlock Holmes and his tales  to the dusty warehouse of history. But, in truth, the two stories serve each other best when told together.

The first story, that of the little girl Lucy Hebron, played out across an ocean.  Born in Atlanta, Georgia, little Lucy lost her father at a very young age.  When her mother felt compelled to return to her native England soon after the father’s death, Lucy was left behind  in Atlanta, to be cared for by a maid.  Her mother, still a young woman, met a man in England and fell in love, failing to mention that she still had a daughter in America.

It seems a typical enough Gothic tale, the new love with the hidden past . . . except for the reason that Lucy’s mother gave for hiding her daughter away from her new husband once the little girl is brought to England.

Lucy’s mother was white, and her father was black. In 1893, that was the shocking twist that made the story. When Lucy’s white step-father, Grant Munro, whole-heartedly acccepted his newfound step-daughter, he was making a statement that not everyone would have made in that time. In some places, a statement that actually could have put his family in terrible danger. That statement? Race doesn’t matter.

Love is love, and a child is a child.  Race doesn’t matter.

The second story I mentioned may get a deaf ear from some readers the minute I mention the main character’s name. Today’s world has new prejudices, as to fill the void left by any fading ones, so I’ll just tell the story.

Another child, a boy this time,  is born to a white mother and a black father. And even though there’s a step-father in this boy’s tale, too, it isn’t the step-father’s blind love that makes his story. No, in 2008,  it’s not the boy’s acceptance by one man that makes the tale, but his acceptance by millions, a large chunk of the population of a whole country. And the statement those millions of people are making is the same one Grant Munro (and Conan Doyle) made back in 1893:

Race doesn’t matter.

In 1893, one voice.

In 2008,  millions.

I don’t care what  your politics are, what the ever-ranting media says, or what happens in the rest of this latter story. Looking at this year’s events, mindful of Sherlock Holmes’s “The Adventure of the Yellow Face,” I hope you’re as proud of the world we now live in as I am. Sherlockians of old used to tell us what a better time and place Sherlock Holmes’s world was. But all you have to do is look at the stories of Lucy Hebron and Barack Obama to see that maybe those fine old fellows were a little bit too sentimental in their estimation.

This week, I don't think this modern world of ours is such a bad place after all.

Your humble correspondent,

Brad Keefauver