CHAPTER XVII
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.