“When Dr. Raymond heard the story and saw you, for you were the baby, he got me on the telephone and told me all about you. And that night he brought you here, and you were such a chubby, bright, interesting little fellow that mother and I fell in love with you immediately and decided to adopt you, which we did according to law. So you are our legal child, Don, and all that, although we are not your real parents.”
Somehow that made me feel a little happier. Dad and mother did have a claim on me at least. That was something.
“It was not until after Dr. Raymond had left,” went on father, “that mother and I examined the box and papers that had come with you. Here they are.”
Dad took up a worn and age-yellowed envelope addressed in a bold hand:
To the Finder
Inside was the following brief message:
To the Finder:—
The mother of this child, Donald Mullen, is dead. I, his father, cannot give him the care he should have. Will you, the finder, adopt him, care for him, and bring him up to be an honest, trustworthy man, and win the eternal gratitude of his dead mother and
Donald Mullen,
his father.