A Gift to Remember

the long version

***This is the story of a young boy born in South Central Ontario.*** His folks, Len and Betty Murray, were very hard up, and Jan had never receive a very expensive Christmas or Birthday present, so when **his father gave him a scrawny colt for his Birthday**, Jan fed and cared for him, and he grew to be his pride and joy. ***A Mortgage Sale, a few years later, saw his colt sold along with everything else.*** As soon as Jan was old enough to quit school, he went looking for his horse. This took him ***to the Upper Ottawa Valley, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and even into the United States.*** **Jan's whole life was changed,** as well as the life of his family, **when a stranger picked him up along the road.** Was it the right thing for Jan to do, to use the stranger's dead son's name, just because his initials were the same, J.M.? In return, **Jan brought happiness and companionship to this lonely widowed man.*****--pg. 2 Foreword***