in it, an’ that ridic’lous curl one side her head, like a mark, was the wishin’ curl.  He’d pertend he could pull it twict an’ say whisperin’, ‘Bickery-ickery-ee—­my wish is comin’ to me,’ an’ he’d git it.  An’ she liked to pertend ‘twas so an’ she could wish things on it for me an’ git ’em....  Clo’es an’ shoes an’ fire an’ cake an’ beefsteak an’ butter an’ stayin’ home....  Just pertendin’, you see.

“Mr. Flint, suh, I ain’t got a God’s thing any more to wish for, but you bein’ the sort o’ man you are, I’d rather ’twas you had Louisa’s wishin’ curl, to remember her by.”  Snip! went the scissors; and there it lay, pale as the new gold of spring sunlight, curling as young grape-tendrils, in the Butterfly Man’s open palm.

“Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee,” said the great Apostle to the lame man who lay beside the gate of the temple that is called, Beautiful.

“I ain’t got nothin’ else,” said the common mill-woman; and laid in John Flint’s hand Louisa’s wishing-curl.

He stared at it, and turned as pale as the child on her pillow.  The human pity of the thing, its sheer stark piercing simplicity, squeezed his heart as with a great hand.

“My God!” he choked.  “My—­God!” and a rending sob tore loose from his throat.  For the first time in his life he had to weep; uncontrolled, unashamed, childlike, fatherly, brotherly.  For he had experienced, unselfishly, on account of one of the humblest of God’s creatures, one of the great divine emotions.  And when that happens to a man it is as if his soul were winnowed by the wind of an archangel’s wings.

Westmoreland and I slipped out and left him with the woman.  She would know what further thing to say to him.

Outside in the bleak bitter street, the Doctor laid his hand on my shoulder.  He winked his eyes rapidly.  “Father,” said he, earnestly, “when I witness such a thing as we’ve seen this morning, I do not lose faith.  I gain it.”  And he gripped me heartily with his big gloved hand.  “Tell John Flint,” he added, “that sometimes a rag doll is a mighty big thing for a man to have to his credit.”  Then he was gone, with a tear freezing on his cheek.

“Angels,” John Flint had said more than once, “are not middle-aged doctors with shoulders on them like a barn-door, and ribs like a dray; angels don’t have bald heads and wear a red tie and tan shoes.  But I’d pass them all up, from Gabriel down, wings and tailfeathers, for one Walter Westmoreland.”

I would, too.  And I walked along, thinking of what I had just witnessed; sensing its time value.  To those slight and fragile things which had, for John Flint, outweighed the scales of evil—­a gray moth, a butterfly’s wing, a bird’s nest—­I added a child’s fair hair, and a rag doll that was going to sleep with its ma.

There were but few people on the freezing streets, for folks preferred to stay indoors and hug the fire.  Fronting the wind, I walked with a lowered head, and thus collided with a lady who turned a corner at the same time I did.