Giving and Receiving

At last approaching night found him safely back in the valley village,
where the keeper of the primitive boarding house expressed her
solicitation over his prolonged absence, as she handed him several
letters which had arrived the day previous. One epistle, from his
associate physician, Dr. Bentley, carried a pressing plea that he return
to Boston as soon as possible, and perform a difficult operation. The
call was so urgent that Donald regretfully concluded that duty demanded
his compliance.

He determined, however, not to leave without paying a final visit to his
new friends, and, soon after sun-up the following morning, set forth for
Big Jerry's cabin, carrying, as a present for Rose, a woven sweetgrass
basket filled with such simple confections as the general store
afforded. Nor had he forgotten a generous supply of pipe tobacco for her
grandfather.

Donald plunged into the woods and headed for Swift River, whose broken,
winding course he followed upward until he reached the rapids of rushing
molten silver and the low, but dangerous, fall which marked the spot of
the early tragedy in the child's life. As he stood there, cap in hand,
the sound of a low treble voice in song fell on his ears, coming from a
place not far distant.

Some one, alone under the cathedral arches of the forest, was softly
chanting the words of the simple, familiar hymn, "Nearer, My God, to
Thee," and, impelled by the unusualness of the thing at such an hour and
in such a place, Donald moved quietly forward until the solitary singer
was in view.