He took from his waistcoat pocket the paper that declared his birth, unfolded it once, pressed it to his lips once, took pins from the edge of the collar of his vest, and pinned the letter fast upon the bosom of his flannel shirt.

It took him a long time to do this in the darkness, his hands were so very weak and tremulous, but, when it was done, he smoothed the paper over carefully and was content.

“They’ll know it now,” he said gently to himself, “they’ll surely know it now.  They’ll no sooner find me here than they’ll know who I am, an’ who my mother is, an’ where to take me.  It’s just the same, just the same as though I was alive myself to tell ’em.”

He leaned back then, and closed his eyes and lay quite still.  He felt no pain from his cut and bleeding hands and knees, nor from his burned wrist, nor from his bruised body.  He was not hungry any more, nor thirsty, nor suffering for breath.  He was thinking, but he thought only of pleasant things.  He remembered no evil, neither any person who had done him evil.

Off somewhere in the distance he could see blue sky, and the tips of waves glancing in the sunlight, and green fields, and long stretches of yellow grain.  It seemed very real to him, so real that he wondered if he was still lying there in the darkness.  He opened his eyes to see.  Yes, it was dark, very dark.

The faint noise of dripping water came to his ears from somewhere in the mine below him.  It reminded him of a tiny waterfall he had once seen under the shadow of a great rock on the bank of Roaring Brook.  It was where a little stream, like a silver thread, ran down across the mossy covering of the edge and went drip, dripping into the stone-walled basin far below.  He wondered if the stream was running there this day, if the tall rock-oak was bending yet above it, if the birds sang there as gayly as they sang that happy day when first he saw it.

For a little time he thought that he was indeed there.  He found it hard to make himself believe that he was still in the mine, alone.  But he was not alone; he knew that he was not alone.  He felt that friends were somewhere near him.  They were staying back in the shadow so that they should not disturb him.  They would come to him soon, when—­when he should waken.

He did not move any more, his eyes were closed and he seemed to be sleeping.  His breath came gently, in long respirations.  The precious letter rose and fell with the slow heaving of his breast.

Down in the darkness the water dripped as placidly as pulses beat.  For the rest there was no sound, no motion.

Once the boy stirred a little and opened his eyes.

“Is that you, Uncle Billy?” he said.  “Come an’ sit down an’ rest a little, an’ then we’ll go out.  I think I got lost or—­or somethin’.”

His Uncle Billy was not there.  The darkness about him held no human being save himself, but the vision was just as real to him, and the coming was just as welcome as though it had all been true.