How utterly Aunt Abby was astonished, how breathlessly she listened to Chip’s recital, and how, when the climax came and Chip assured her that good Old Cy Walker was still alive, Aunt Abby collapsed entirely, sobbing and thanking God all at once, is but a sidelight on this tale.
“I couldn’t tell you before,” Chip assured her, while her own tears still flowed. “I was so ashamed and guilty all in one, I couldn’t bear to. I never did so mean a thing in all my life, and never will again. But when Uncle Jud told me what you didn’t, and how much he cared for me, and how you once cared for Uncle Cy, I went all to pieces and told the whole story and sent word to Uncle Cy that day. I feel so guilty now, and so mean, I don’t see how you can forgive me.”
But Aunt Abby’s forgiveness was not slow in coming. The past ten days of sorrow had left her heart very tender. In spite of being “book-larned,” she was very humane. Chip’s sad life and misfortunes appealed to her, as they had to Uncle Jud, and true Christian woman that she was, her heart opened to Chip.
“I hope we shall never be parted while I live,” she said, as the tears came again. “I have no children, and no one to live for but my sister. I am so wonted to Christmas Cove, I could not feel at home anywhere else. If Uncle Jud will consent, I will adopt you legally, and when I am laid away, all I have shall be yours.”
And so Chip McGuire, waif of the wilderness, child of an outlaw, once sold to a human brute, yet fighting her way upward and onward to a better life, despite every drawback, now found a home and mother.
No light of education had illumined her pathway, no Christian teaching and no home example, only the inborn and God-given impulse of purity, self-respect, and gratitude; and yet, like a bud forcing its way up out of a muck heap and into the sunshine, so Chip had emerged to win respect and love.
But all her history is not told yet. She still lacked even a common education. There was still an old man seeking to find her, who was yet wandering afar. A homeless, almost friendless old man was he, whose life had gone amiss, and whose sole ambition was to do for her and find content in her happiness. A wanderer and recluse for many years, he was still more so now, and out of place as well among the busy haunts of men. More than that, he was an object of curiosity to all grown people and the jest of the young, as he tramped up and down the land in search of Chip.
And what a pitiful quest it was,–this asking the same question thousands of times, this lingering in towns to watch mill operatives file out, this peering into stores and marts, to go on again, and repeat it for months and months.
There was still another link in this chain,–a boy, so far as experience goes, who was only deterred from unwise haste by a cool-headed man.
“You had better not go to Chip now,” Martin said to him on his return from Peaceful Valley. “She is an odd child of nature, and you won’t lose by waiting. My advice to you is to forget her for the present, find some profitable occupation, and then, when you have made a little advancement in life, go and woo her if you can. To try it now is foolish.”