He dressed in the darkness of the bedroom. Black trousers. Blue work shirt. He pulled his suspenders over bony shoulders and then wriggled into his black coat. On his way to the door, he plucked his flat-brimmed hat from the hook on the wall.

The steps creaked beneath his stocking feet as he made his way downstairs. The clock on the wall in the living room told him it wasn’t yet four-thirty. He was thinking about a hot cup of coffee and helping himself to one of his wife’s apple fritters as he went into the kitchen and lit the lantern. He carried it back through the living room to the front door. Setting the lantern on the table, he opened the door. There was no one there. He looked down; surprise quivered through him at the sight of the plastic laundry basket. A quilt inside. But who would leave an injured animal on his doorstep?

Something moved within the quilt. The sound that followed sent him back a step. Alarm fluttered deep in his gut. He pressed his hand to his chest. He’d fathered eleven children; he’d heard enough crying in his lifetime to know this was no animal, but a child, and a newborn at that.

Bending, he carefully peeled away a corner of the quilt. Sure enough, the wrinkled red face of an infant stared back at him. Tiny mouth open. Chin quivering. Hands fluttering.

The old man’s heart turned over. “En bobli,” he whispered. A baby.

He figured he’d held a hundred or more babies in the eighty-one years he’d been on earth. It had been awhile—even his grandchildren were older now—but holding one of God’s children was something a man never forgot. Ignoring the arthritis in his knees, he knelt, plucked the child and quilt from the basket, and brought both to his chest.

“Vo du dich kumma funn?” he cooed in Pennsylvania Dutch. “Where did you come from?”

A rustle from the darkness beyond the porch startled him. Something moved on the other side of the lilac bushes that grew alongside the driveway. Cradling the baby, he stepped back and squinted into the shadows beyond the porch.

“Who goes there?” he called out.

He listened, thought he heard footsteps against gravel, faint and moving away. “Hello? Who’s there?”

The only reply was the whisper of wind through the trees. Whoever had left this child on his doorstep was gone.

“Was der schinner du havva?” What’ve you got there?

He jolted at the sound of his wife’s voice, turned to see her, still clad in her nightgown, a thick cardigan sweater draped over her shoulders, creeping down the stairs, a lantern in her hand.

Taking a final look outside, the bishop closed the door and started toward his wife. “I believe God has sent us a package from heaven.”

She thrust the lantern toward him. Her step faltered; her eyes went wide when she spotted the baby. “Oh Good Lord! En bobli?” She looked from the child to her husband. “Where did it come from?”