A WONDERFUL DISCOVERY
"Joel, come to me quickly!" they heard her gasp, as though she were
almost suffocating; and both of them hastened to her side.
"What has happened, wife?" cried the alarmed deacon.
"Oh! tell me, am I awake, or dreaming, husband?" she went on to say
thickly. "See what the child is wearing about his dear chubby neck!
Surely we ought to know that tiny gold locket. It carries me far
back through the long, weary, waiting years to the day I clasped it
about his neck--my baby Joel!"
The deacon snatched the object from her quivering hand. He stared
hard at it, as though he, too, might suspect he were asleep, and that
it was all but a vision of a disordered mind.
Hugh was trembling, he hardly knew why. Something seemed to rush
over him, something that thrilled him to the core. He had felt a
touch of the same sensation when the good old lady let him look at
the pictures in her family album, and pointed to one of her baby boy;
although at the time he could not fully grasp the idea that appealed
so dimly to his investigating mind.
Then Deacon Winslow found his voice, though it was thick and husky
when he went on to say hastily:
"Yes, it does look mighty like the one you had for the boy; and we
never found it again, you remember, after he--left home; so we
thought he had taken it along with everything else he owned. But
wait, wife, don't jump at conclusions. It is next to impossible that
this should be the tiny chain with the plain gold pendant that you
bought for our little Joel. Surely there must have been many others
like it made."
Apparently, he was sorely afraid lest the bitter disappointment would
follow. The blasting of those new, wild hopes of hers might have a
bad effect on the old lady. That was why the deacon tried to keep
her from being too sanguine, even though he himself was possibly
hugging suddenly awakened rapturous dreams to his heart.
"There may have been others, Joel!" she cried exultantly; "but look
on the back of the medallion. I feared it might be lost some day,
Joel, so I scratched his initials there. My glasses are too moist
for me to see well; look and tell me if you can make out anything,
husband!"
Even Hugh held his breath while the deacon turned the tiny medallion
over in his hands. Then he snatched up a reading glass of
considerable power from the table, and held it close to the object in
his quivering clutch.
They heard him give a cry, and it did not hint at disappointment.
"Oh! Joel, are the three letters there?" she begged piteously, as she
hugged the still calmly sleeping child closer and closer to her heart.
"Something I can see, wife, although it is very faint," he told her.
"But then think of the many years that have elapsed. The scratches
must have been very lightly done at best. Hugh, your eyes are
younger than mine; and, besides, I'm afraid there are tears dimming
my sight. Look, and tell us what you see!"
It was a picture, with those two old people so eagerly hanging on the
decision of the clear-eyed youth. Hugh used the glass, for he wanted
to make certain. It would be doubly cruel if by any mistake on his
part those anxious hearts were deceived.
"I can plainly make out the first initial, which is J beyond
question," he almost immediately said.
At hearing that the deacon cast a swift look toward his wife, which
she returned in kind. Neither of them could find utterance for a
single word, however, such was the mental strain under which they
labored.
"The last letter looks like a W," continued Hugh. "Yes, now that
I've rubbed it with my finger I am positive of that. As for the
middle one, I think it must be either an O or a C, though it's rather
hard to say."
Deacon Winslow gave a deep sigh.
"And our boy's middle name was Carstairs, named after his mother's
family!" he hastened to say.
Then they exchanged more wondering looks. It was very like a
miracle, the bringing of the little child into the home of that
couple whose fireside had so long awaited the coming of such a
sunbeam.
Deacon Winslow turned almost fiercely on Hugh, and gripped his sleeve.
"You must tell us more about the boy," he said. "Who is he, and
where did he come from? Those are vital things for us to learn. We
could never know peace again if this mystery were not made clear. So
tell us, Hugh, tell us as quickly as you can, so that we may learn
the best, or the worst."
He saw that they were strangely shaken, and Hugh wisely believed it
best to reassure them in the very beginning.
"First of all, sir," he started to say, "I begin to believe it may be
what you would wish most of all. This boy who so much resembles your
own child of the past is likely to turn out his son or perhaps
grandson, for his mother's name is Walters, we've learned. You ask
me where I found him, and I meant to tell you later on, never
dreaming that it would interest you more than casually. I picked him
and his mother up Thursday evening just at dusk, when I was coming
home from a farm in a sleigh, where I had been to get a sack of
potatoes. The young woman was trying to ask me something when she
swooned away."
"Go on, lad, go on!" pleaded the deacon hoarsely, as Hugh paused for
breath.
"Of course, the only thing I could do was to get them into the sleigh
and whip up the horse," Hugh continued. "Once I reached home my
mother would not hear of the poor thing being taken to the hospital.
She had her put to bed and the doctor called in. Since that time she
has been threatened with fever; in fact, is partly out of her head,
though Doctor Cadmus says he believes she will be sensible by
to-morrow morning. She was simply half-starved, and dreadfully
worried about something."
"But could you not hear a few random words she uttered that would
give you some idea as to her identity, and where she came from?"
asked the deacon.
"Besides her name, which seemed to be Walters, she has said nothing
that gives us a clue, save that we imagine they must have lived
somewhere in the West."
"In the West--and our Joel started for that section of the country!"
gasped the old lady, still patting the curly head on her lap lovingly.
"And then the lad's name is very similar," broke in the deacon. "Are
you sure, Hugh, if isn't Joel? Might not the child have simply given
the baby pronunciation of Joey?"
"I think that would be very likely, sir," admitted the boy readily.
Again the agitated couple exchanged looks. Hugh would certainly
never forget the joyous expression that sat upon both faces. It was
as though Heaven had opened to them, and given them back the child of
their younger years.
The deacon dropped down on his knees. One arm went around his aged
wife and the little fellow she cuddled in her lap. In sonorous tones
he lifted up his voice and gave thanks from the depths of his heart
for the great mercy shown to them that night.
Hugh was deeply affected. He believed some invisible hand must have
guided him when he took that sudden notion to have the child go
walking with him, his mother having suggested that it might do the
little chap good to get an airing after being shut up in the house
all day long.
His mind raced back, and once more he marshalled all the facts, as
far as he knew them, before him. Yes, there did not seem to be any
reason to believe such a thing as a sad mistake could be made. That
boy certainly had the Winslow blood in him; why, he greatly resembled
the Joel of more than fifty years back, as shown in that old-time
daguerreotype.
Then Deacon Winslow once more rose to his feet. His face was fairly
radiant, as was that of his wife.
"I believe I can understand how this comes about," he was saying,
just as if he might have had a revelation as he prayed there. "It is
no accident, but the hand of a special Providence. Our petitions
have been heard, and this is the answer; so the last few years of our
lives may be made happy by the sight of our own flesh and blood. My
poor service has come up as a memorial before Heaven. And let us
hope that tomorrow, when that poor girl comes into her senses again,
she will be able to tell us all of the wonderful story."
"There is one thing I should have mentioned, sir, which slipped my
mind," Hugh went on to say just then. "Always in her delirium she
seems to be pleading with someone not to deny her a place under his
family roof with her little Joey. And it is to an imaginary
_grandfather_ she is appealing, so pathetically that I have seen my
mother crying time and again, for very sympathy."
"A grandfather, and cruel at that!" said the old man, shaking his
head, while the tears rolled unheeded down his furrowed cheeks. "At
least, that does not apply to me. She will learn presently that we
stand ready to take her into our hearts and home as our own. Oh! it
seems too good to be true, this blessing that has come to us
to-night. And, Hugh Morgan, you must always be associated in our
minds with this realization of our utmost hopes, which of late years
we have not even dared whisper to each other."
He wrung the boy's hand until Hugh almost writhed under the pressure;
while the happy "grandma" continued to devour the plump, rosy-cheeked
face of her charge with her eyes, as though she could not tear her
gaze away.
Long they continued to sit there and talk, always upon that one
subject, because everything else must be subordinated to the
wonderful revelation that had come to them, to prove that truth is
often stranger than fiction.
Three times did Hugh suggest that he had better be heading towards
home: but they pleaded with him to stay "just a little longer"; for
their starved hearts found it hard to let the newly found treasure
out of sight, even for a short time.
"But I must really be going," Hugh finally told them. "It is now
after ten, and mother will be worrying about the child, not knowing,
of course, that he has found a new protector, two of them, in fact.
You can both come over after breakfast in the morning, and visit the
boy. If his mother has regained her senses, and the doctor permits
it, you will be able to settle the matter once and for all by seeing
her."
So with that they had to rest content. The child was bundled up
warmly, and tenderly placed in the sleigh by his huge grandfather,
after the old lady had kissed his forehead and cheeks a dozen times.
Then they were off, and shortly afterwards arrived at the Morgan
home. Deacon Winslow insisted on carrying the tiny chap indoors;
after which he hastened back, to sit up most of the night with his
wife, talking of the wonderful thing that had come to bless them in
their old age.
And Hugh, on his part, had a deeply interested auditor in his mother,
as he spun the yarn that equaled anything he had ever read in the
Arabian Nights.