m his rude
pillow. "You mustn't do that!"

"I must--I must!" was the hoarse reply; and Freddy was caught in a wild,
passionate clasp to his patient's heart. "Dying or living, I must claim
you, hold you, my boy,--my own little son,--little Boy Blue!" The voice
sank to a low, trembling whisper. "Little Boy Blue, don't you know your
own daddy?"

And Freddy, who had been struggling wildly in what he believed to be a
delirious grasp, suddenly grew still. "Little Boy Blue,"--it was the
nursery name of long ago,--the name that only the dad of those days
knew,--the name that even Brother Bart had never heard. It brought back
blazing fire, and cushioned rocker, and the clasp of strong arms around
his little white-robed form, and a deep, merry voice in his baby ear:
"Little Boy Blue."

Freddy lifted a frightened, bewildered little face. The eyes,--softened
now with brimming tears; the straight nose like his own, the waving hair,
the scar he had so often pressed with baby fingers,--ah, he
remembered,--little Boy Blue remembered! It was as if a curtain were
snatched from a far past that had been only dimly outlined until now.

"My daddy,--my daddy,--my own dear daddy!" he cried, flinging his arms
about the sick man's neck. "Oh, don't die,--don't die!"

For, weak and exhausted by his outburst of emotion, the father had fallen
back upon his pillow, gasping for breath, the sweat standing out in great
beads on his brow, his hand clutching Freddy's own in what seemed a death
clasp.

And now Freddy prayed indeed,--prayed as never in all his young life he
had prayed before,--prayed from the depths of his tender, innocent heart,
in words all his own.

"O God, Father in heaven, spare my dear daddy! He has been lost so long!
Oh, do not let me lose him again! Save him for his little boy,--save him,
spare him!"

Without, the sky had darkened, the wind moaned, the waves swelled
white-capped against the low shore. The August storm was rising against
Last Island in swift wrath; but, wrestling in passionate fervor for the
life that had suddenly become so precious to him, Freddy did not hear or
heed. The dogs started out into the open. Father and son were alone in the
gathering gloom.

Through what he believed the throes of his death agony, the sick man
caught the sweet, faltering words: "O dear Lord, have mercy on my dear
father! Let him live, and we will bless and thank You all the rest of our
lives. He has been lost so long, but now