“Ain’t you glad you took him, father?”
“I took him because I thought it to be my duty, and I think we always feel best when we have done our duty,” replied the cautious parent.
“I am!” exclaimed the grandparent, “what a sin and a shame it would have been for a young able-bodied man like that to have remained starving in rags, scorned by the sweepings of a workhouse, because he could find no work by which to earn his bread, had too much pride of character to beg, and too much principle to steal.”
“Aye,” said Alice Whitman, “and suppose he had been driven by misery to take his own life. But now he is in a fair way to make a good and useful member of society. As far as I am concerned, he shall have as kind usage as any child of mine, for I believe he was sent to us.”
“The prayers of good persons are always heard, but are not always answered at once; and I have no doubt it was the prayer of that Christian mother that stood in the way to stay his hand when he thought to commit murder upon himself.”
“You need not be afraid, Jonathan Whitman, to do for and trust that lad. His father was a hard working Christian man, and his mother a hard working Christian woman. There’s no vile blood in his veins, he was born where the birds sang, and the grass grew around the door-step, if he did find shelter in a workhouse. You’ll honor yourself and bring a blessing upon your own hearthstone by caring for him.”
“Amen,” exclaimed the grandparent, laying his great wrinkled hand in benediction upon the head of his son’s wife.
In making such minute inquiries of Albert in respect to the conversation between himself and James, Mr. Whitman was influenced by a stronger motive than mere curiosity. He knew, for he was a keen observer, that James would unbosom himself to this innocent, enthusiastic and artless boy in a manner that he would not to any other; and he wanted to get at his inward life that he might thoroughly know, and thus understandingly, guide and benefit him.
Reflecting upon what he had heard, he drew from it this inference, and said within himself, “There’s life in him yet.”