A drover in Dakota promised to bring home from his cattle sale
a doll for his little girl. He was caught in a blizzard, and
night found him still miles from home. In the darkness he heard
a cry, possibly of a child lost in the storm. He was thankful
for the warm house that sheltered his own child, but he could
not leave that cry off in the dark, tho he knew he was risking
his life lingering. It was hard tracing the feeble cry, and
when at last he found it it was not crying. He gathered it up
under his big overcoat and struggled homeward, stumbling, nearly
perishing, but at last fell in over his own threshold, with his
own child saved in his arms.--FRANKLIN NOBLE, “Sermons
in Illustration.”
(1890)