And Sarah was waiting at the
door of the white place on the hill when Caleb wheeled into the yard at
dusk, two days later.
"You've found him!" she exclaimed as she glimpsed his face when he
entered the hall.
Caleb shook his head, his heart aching at the hunger in her question.
"No, I haven't found _him_, Sarah," he said gently enough. "But
I--I've found out _who he is_!"
They forgot their supper that night. With heads close together they
hung for hours over the ink-smeared sheaf of papers which the tin box
yielded up. Most of them were covered with a cramped and misspelled
handwriting which they knew must be that of the one whom Steve had
called "Old Tom." Some of them were hard to decipher, but their import
was very, very clear.
There was one picture--a miniature of a girl, eager of face and wavy of
hair. Her relationship to the boy was unmistakable. Sarah found that
and wept over it silently, and while she wept Caleb sifted out the
remaining loose sheets and came upon a bundle of tax receipts. These
puzzled him for a moment, until, at the very bottom of the box he found
a folded and legal-looking document. He opened that and then he
understood--he understood just how every penny had been spent which Old
Tom had been able to earn. After the swiftest of examinations, Caleb
refolded the paper and slipped it into his own pocket, without showing
it to Sarah at all.
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