“David,” he said, “I do think God was very near us then. I think He heard.”
“Ay, ay, He’d be sure to hear thee. What did thee say?”
“I don’t quite know,” answered Bertie, gravely; “but I’m sure God understood.”
“I be sure too,” returned David, with absolute confidence.
“I should like to come here every day when the tide turns,” said Bertie.
“I wish thee would. I’d always be here too, I would.”
Bertie pondered for a few moments.
“I’ll come as often as I can,” he said; “but I can’t be sure of coming every day at the right time. If I’m not here, David, will you do just as we did alone, and ask Him not to forget us ever, and to let me find out some day the things I can’t remember? I don’t want to be impatient; I know He knows best; but I do want to remember some day.”
“And I’m sure He’ll help thee some day,” answered David, with some fervor. “I’ll ask Him every day for thee, that I will; and He’ll be sure to answer when He’s ready. All good folks say so, and they must know best. I’ll come here every day when the tide turns, and then He’s sure to see me.”
So Bertie went away comforted, a sweet sense of fatherly love and protection seeming to overshadow him. It might be true enough that nobody wanted him, that he was of no use to anybody, but perhaps, if he tried to love and trust God more, to be “strong and of good courage,” to have faith in Him and wait quietly for His will to be done—perhaps then God would help him to be of some little use, to win some of the human love he felt to be lacking in his life, perhaps he might be able to fill the blank of which at times he was so painfully conscious.