"Tad, dear, God has taught me a many lessons since you left home all them months ago. First there was losin' my baby, and afterwards this illness that came of a fall. But Tad, it wasn't until I began to miss my little one, that I called to mind how you and Nell and Bert had never ceased to miss your mother, and how I never so much as tried to fill her place. And it wasn't till I was laid aside, and needed to have people tender and patient with me, that I remembered I'd never been tender and patient with the poor chil'en I was stepmother to. But now, dear boy, you've come home again, and me and your father we'll both try and make it real home to you, so as it shan't never no more come into your head and heart to run away. Kiss me, Tad, and call me mother, for that's what—God helpin' me—I mean to be to you always."
And now we can say good-bye to Tad the kidnapper, feeling quite sure that never again will he deserve this name.
How he went back to his duties at the grocer's shop, living in Mr. Scales' house all the week, and returning home for Sunday; how he gradually rose in his employer's confidence to a position of trust and of usefulness; how Phil, after a short sojourn with the Pooles, began to pine for something to do, and accepted Jeremiah Jackson's offer of a berth as cabin boy aboard the "Stormy Petrel"; how Marie, by special invitation, came every now and then to see baby Victor, (as she still called him); and how God sent her at last a little baby boy of her very own to comfort her heart; all this we need only just mention, for our story has been told to show that the getting of our own way does not always mean happiness or prosperity.
And since poor Tad Poole had learned this lesson, perhaps we who have followed him step by step in his adventurous career have learned it too.
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