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But on a day, coming from his factory, Old Growly was stricken with horror to find that during his absence from home a great change had come upon his child. The doctor said it was simply the progress of the disease; that it was a marvel that little Abel had already held out so long; that from the moment of his birth the seal of death had been set upon him in that cruel malady which had drawn his face and warped his body and limbs. Then all at once Old Growly’s eyes seemed to be opened to the truth, and like a lightning flash it came to him that perhaps his pleasant dreams which he had dreamed of his child’s future could never be realized. It was a bitter awakening, yet amid it all the old man was full of hope, determination, and battle. He had little faith in drugs and nursing and professional skill; he remembered that upon previous occasions cures had been wrought by means of money; teeth had been brought through, the pangs of colic beguiled, and numerous other ailments to which infancy is heir had by the same specific been baffled. So now Old Growly set about wooing his little boy from the embrace of death,–sought to coax him back to health with money, and the dimes became dollars, and the tin bank was like to burst of fulness. But little Abel drooped and drooped, and he lost all interest in other things, and he was content to lie, drooping-eyed and listless, in his mother’s arms all day. At last the little flame went out with hardly so much as a flutter, and the hope of the house of Dunklee was dissipated forever. But even in those last moments of the little cripple’s suffering the father struggled to call back the old look into the fading eyes, and the old smile into the dear, white face. He brought treasure from his vaults and held it up before those fading eyes, and promised it all, all, all–everything he possessed, gold, houses, lands–all he had he would give to that little child if that little child would only live. But the fading eyes saw other things, and the ears that were deaf to the old man’s lamentations heard voices that soothed the anguish of that last solemn hour. And so little Abel knew the Mystery.

Then the old man crept away from that vestige of his love, and stood alone in the night, and lifted up his face, and beat his bosom, and moaned at the stars, asking over and over again why he had been so bereaved. And while he agonized in this wise and cried there came to him a voice,–a voice so small that none else could hear, a voice seemingly from God; for from infinite space beyond those stars it sped its instantaneous way to the old man’s soul and lodged there.

“Abel, I have touched thy heart!”

And so, having come into the darkness of night, old Dunklee went back into the light of day and found life beautiful; for the touch was in his heart.

After that, Old Growly’s way of dealing with the world changed. He had always been an honest man, honest as the world goes. But now he was somewhat better than honest; he was kind, considerate, merciful. People saw and felt the change, and they knew why it was so. But the pathetic part of it all was that Old Growly would never admit–no, not even to himself–that he was the least changed from his old grinding, hard self. The good deeds he did were not his own; they were his little boy’s,–at least so he said. And it was his whim when doing some kind and tender thing to lay it to little Abel, of whom he always spoke as if he were still living. His workmen, his neighbors, his townsmen,–all alike felt the graciousness of the wondrous change, and many, ah! many a lowly sufferer blessed that broken old man for succor in little Abel’s name. And the old man was indeed much broken: not that he had parted with his shrewdness and acumen, for, as of old, his every venture prospered; but in this particular his mind seemed weakened; that, as I have said, he fancied his child lived, that he was given to low muttering and incoherent mumblings, of which the burden seemed to be that child of his, and that his greatest pleasure appeared now to be watching other little ones at their play. In fact, so changed was he from the Old Growly of former years, that, whereas he had then been wholly indifferent to the presence of those little ones upon earth, he now sought their company, and delighted to view their innocent and mirthful play. And so, presently, the children, from regarding him at first with distrust, came to confide in and love him, and in due time the old man was known far and wide as Old Grampa Growly, and he was pleased thereat. It was his wont to go every fair day, of an afternoon, into a park hard by his dwelling, and mingle with the crowd of little folk there; and when they were weary of their sports they used to gather about him,–some even clambering upon his knees,–and hear him tell his story, for he had only one story to tell, and that was the story that lay next his heart,–the story ever and forever beginning with, “Once ther’ wuz a littl’ boy.” A very tender little story it was, too, told very much more sweetly than I could ever tell it; for it was of Old Grampa Growly’s own little boy, and it came from that heart in which the touch–the touch of God Himself–lay like a priceless pearl.