T was a comfort to have that matter off his mind, and, whatever might come of it, he had done the right thing. Such were Flutters’s thoughts, as with hands plunged deep in his overcoat pockets, he started for home. To be sure, there was no knowing what might happen. What if his father should write to Captain Boniface and tell him that he (Flutters) was a naughty little runaway, and advise him to have nothing more to do with him? or suppose he should direct to have him sent right back to England, what would he do? Why, then, he thought he’d simply run away again, only that would not be an easy thing to do after having been treated so kindly by the Bonifaces. But, as he had himself told the Sergeant, it was not at all probable that this would happen; and so, like the logical little philosopher he was, he decided to think no more about it, and, if taking the advice of the old hymn, he “gave to the winds his fears,” it was no time at all before they were blown far behind him. During the half hour that he had spent with the Sergeant, a cold northwest blow had set in, making it far more comfortable for him to bend his head downward as he ran, and not take the wind full in his face. And this same northwest wind was playing all sorts of pranks with every pliable thing it could get hold of. The bare branches of the trees were swaying and crackling, withered leaves were swirling round in eddies and rustling loudly, gates were creaking on their rusty hinges, and, just as Flutters had reached a point in the road where an old hut stood, the blustering wind caught the only shutter remaining at one of its windows, and slammed it to with a bang that fairly made him jump. Looking toward the hut that had been deserted for years, Flutters saw a faint light shining out through the half of the window that was not screened by the closed shutter.

“That’s queer,” he thought; “who can be living there?” and then, instead of running on without giving the matter another thought—as some boys, I think, would have done—he walked softly in at the gateway that had long lacked a gate, straight up to the window and peeped in; nor was it mere curiosity that prompted him to do it either. Flutters knew that no one, under ordinary circumstances, would be there; nothing short of utter homelessness would make anybody seek shelter in that wretched place, and so he felt the matter ought to be investigated, and he was not afraid to be the one to do it. And what do you suppose he saw through the broken pane? Something that would have made the tears come into almost anybody’s eyes, but something that made Flutters’s heart fairly stand still.

The only furniture of the room was a three-legged stool on which a bit of candle was spluttering, fastened to the stool by the melting of its own tallow, and there beside it, on a bundle of straw, lay an old man; and it took but one glance from Flutters’s astonished eyes to see that the man was Bobbin, the old circus drudge. In another second he had pushed the door open and was kneeling at his friend’s side, and stroking his cold, wrinkled hand.

“Why, who is it?” asked Bobbin, in a cracked, weak voice; “I can’t rightly see, somehow, but it’s good to know some one has come.”

“Why, it’s me, Bobbin, don’t you know me?” said Flutters, scarcely able to speak with emotion.

A bright smile lighted up the old man’s face. “Ah! I thought He’d send somebody. He did send you, didn’t He?”

“No, nobody sent me, Bobbin. I was just going by, and I saw the light, and I peeped in and then I saw you.”

The old man shook his head, as much as to say that he believed that the good Father had sent him, nevertheless.

“I’m glad you were the one to come,” he said, presently; “there’s nobody I’d rather have had than you, Flutters. You were always a kind little chap to old Bobbin.”

Flutters did not say anything—he couldn’t. He just pressed the wrinkled hand a little harder as it lay in his.

“You see, Flutters,” said Bobbin, presently, “I think I am going home to-night, and it was kind of lonely not to have somebody to care for me. Not that I mind going. I’m not a bit afraid, Flutters. I have done the best I could with the poor chance I had, and God will forgive the rest; don’t you think so, Flutters?”

Flutters nodded his head, and then he said in a moment, when he thought he could control his voice: “But, Bobbin, I do not believe you are going to die. You need food and fire and clothes to warm you, and I am going right off to get them for you.”

“Oh, no, please don’t,” pleaded the old man, putting what little strength he had into his hold on Flutters’s hand. “I don’t want food nor anything. I just want to go, and it won’t be long. Promise me you’ll stay till morning, Flutters.”

There was no gainsaying the entreaty in Bobbin’s voice, and so Flutters said: “I promise you, Bobbin;” and, with a gratified sigh the old man turned on his side and soon fell asleep. After a while, when Flutters dared to move a little, he piled the loose straw that lay about him as closely as possible over Bobbin, and finally decided to dispense with his own warm coat, for the sake of stuffing it in the hole of the little paneless window through which the wind was keenly blowing.

Then, after another hour of motionless watching, during which Bobbin still lay sleeping as quietly as a child, it occurred to Flutters to try and make a fire in the blackened fireplace. Some old bits of board were lying in one corner of the room, and, piling them on the hearth, he easily succeeded in kindling them with a bundle of straw lighted at the candle. At first he was afraid that the crackling of the wood would waken the old man; but, undisturbed, he slept quietly on as though his mind was perfectly at rest, now that Flutters had come to care for him.

“I do not believe he is going to die,” thought Flutters, after he had again sat motionless for a long time, and then he crept close on hands and knees to look into his face, and to listen if he was breathing quite regularly; and there, bending over him, what did he see but something that made his heart bound for joy, though it was nothing but the corner of a little book showing itself above the ragged edge of one of Bobbin’s pockets. And no wonder he was glad, for he knew in a moment that it was his own little Prayer-Book.



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At first he thought he ought not to touch it for fear of waking

Bobbin, but how could he help it, and so, as gently as possible, he drew it out from its hiding-place, and crept back to the candle. I suppose we can hardly imagine what the finding of this old friend meant to Flutters. There was his own name on the fly-leaf, in his mother&rs............