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My father was lost in a mountain forest of giant rhododendrons. He and his companions didn't know which way to go. All of a sudden, he heard the gentle tinkling of bells.

Out of the foliage appeared a little boy dressed all in red. He had jingling bells on his hat, around his wrists, and attached to his pouch and his spear. He was smiling, and he gave my father a letter addressed to him-a letter from Prague.

My father was amazed; how could this be? He had been waiting for a letter from his family for a long time, but to have it reach him in the middle of nowhere? That was unbelievable! How had the boy found him? Was my father not as lost as he thought he was?

My father wanted to give the jingle-bell boy a present and remembered a pair of scissors he had brought to cut film and labels. The boy seemed pleased and fascinated by this strange tool, which he opened and closed and tried out on tufts of grass and on leaves. They offered the boy a place by the fire for the night. My father was hoping to learn where they were and how to find their way out; he tried drawing maps in the dirt, but he couldn't make himself understood.

When Father awoke the next morning, the boy was gone. Then Father noticed a rhododendron leaf with an unusual cut, and then another and another. He knew as he followed the scissors cuts they would lead him out of the forest and through the mountainous maze of valleys and ridges.

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