“I can do better than that,” he said, and wrote the note already given.
To Aunt Lydia, he sent a request that the note might be handed to her husband, Christmas day. Aunt Lydia dropped it into that capacious stocking. There was a happy Christmas gathering at Boardman Blake’s. Walter’s father and mother were there, and some of the neighbors were invited to “drop in.”
“We must ask the Elliotts,” said Aunt Lydia, and May, Amy, and Capt. Elliott came to represent them.
Miss P. Green too had been invited, and with her appeared her boarder, Chauncy Aldrich. Walter had faithfully kept his word to Chauncy, and careful nursing met with its reward. Back from the gates of death, was Chauncy brought, and he also came into a new life, spiritually. He walked after Christ in love and obedience. He returned after Christmas to the home of his parents, and he took his Christian principles with him and steadfastly adhered to them.
When the lights at the Christmas gathering had all been extinguished, and Walter was in his room upstairs, before retiring he looked out of the window toward the sea. He detected a bright little light crawling along through the darkness in the direction of the beach opposite the Crescent, “That is Tom Walker’s lantern,” thought Walter. “It is his watch, and he is out upon his beat.”
The light disappeared behind a projection of the shore ledges, and then Walter bowed in prayer and asked God to care for his brave old comrades who were caring for others and “Fighting the Sea.”
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:
—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.