“My very own mother wrote those words, and my name there—Justin,” he announced, reverently.
Clayton looked at the writing, and then again at the boy. The record on the fly-leaf was but a simple memorandum, in faded ink:
“Justin, my baby boy, is now six months old. May God bless and preserve him and may he become a good man.”
A date showed, in addition to this, but that was all; not even the mother’s name was signed.
“This was in it, too; it is my hair.”
The boy pulled the book open at another place and extracted a brown wisp.
“We think it is his hair,” said Wingate. “It was found beside the writing on the fly-leaf.”
Then while the boy crowded close against Clayton’s knees, and Clayton sat holding the open Bible in his hands, Wingate told the story of this child, who now bore the name of Justin Wingate.
“The young fellow who brought him to me said there were some papers, which he had left behind, having forgotten them when he set out, and that he would fetch them later. But he never came again,—he was only a boy, and boys forget—and I even failed to get his name, being somewhat excited at the time, because of the strange charge given to me, a bachelor minister.”
Clayton read the words over slowly, and looked intently at the boy.