“Thank you, Joseph. It will make me happy. Whatever I do for him, I will do for my lost darling.”
They went back into the room. They found Phil with his cap on and his fiddle under his arm.
“Where are you going, Philip?” asked the doctor.
“I am going into the street. I thank you for your kindness.”
“Would you not rather stay with us?”
Phil looked up, uncertain of his meaning.
“We had a boy once, but he is dead. Will you stay with us and be our boy?”
Phil looked in the kind faces of the doctor and his wife, and his face lighted up with joy at the unexpected prospect of such a home, with people who would be kind to him.
“I will stay,” he said. “You are very kind to me.”
So our little hero had drifted into a snug harbor. His toils and privations were over. And for the doctor and his wife it was a glad day also. On Christmas Day four years before they had lost a child. On this Christmas, God had sent them another to fill the void in their hearts.