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FOXBORO - Cabinetmaker Calvin Davis came home after a devastating loss to find boxes of valuable hand and power tools on his back porch.

"No note, no nothing," Davis said.

Just the evidence of a good deed done after a Christmas Day garage fire that gutted his workshop garage at 200 North St., an estimated $250,000 loss.

But a woman whose name he did not recognize had left a phone message, saying the tools had belonged to her late father, a Foxboro craftsman.

Debbie Kanady of North Attleboro wanted Davis to have them - to help him get back to his woodworking as soon as possible. "It took me 20 minutes to call her back to thank her, because I was choked up," Davis said. "It's like Christmas all over again."

Kanady, a 1968 graduate of Foxboro High School, said she grew up at 118 Mechanic St., where her father, Charlie Burrell, who died in 2001, ran a cabinetmaking shop for 50 years. He was the son of Mabelle M. Burrell. An elementary school on Morse Street bears her name.

Kanady said her family no longer owns the Foxboro house, and she never knew why she kept her father's woodworking tools.

"I must have known something," Kanady said, referring to the opportunity to put her dad's tools back to work - in the hands of Calvin Davis, whose holiday loss was reported in The Sun Chronicle.

"There isn't anything she dropped off that we couldn't use right away," said Davis, who has run Cal Customs for the past 17 years.

Ellen Davis, his wife, came close to tears when she spoke of Kanady's thoughtfulness.

"It's wonderful," she said.

Cal Davis said a dozen friends and others showed up the morning after Christmas to help him begin gutting the building.

The team filled three 30-cubic-yard dumpsters.

His cousin, former Lakeview Road resident Mike Mendes, of Norton, who helped Davis build the shop in 1991, has returned every day since the fire to help. "My phone has been ringing constantly," Davis said. "Everyone is volunteering to help."

Through the co-op program at Southeastern Regional Technical High School, he arranged to hire a neighbor, Bryan Gilreath, to help renovate the burned out garage.

Over the years, Davis has hired many Southeastern woodworking students to help with his business.

"Everyone one of them has turned out to be a great apprentice in the trade," he said.

Now he needs carpentry work, which is the young man's field.

Davis said the 30-foot by 40-foot wood and steel garage is still strong and weather tight.

He plans to "sodablast" the charred beams down to a natural wood finish. It will be about three months before the shop is back in operation.

But with installation of pre-fabricated cabinets, a regular part of the business, he and his son, Ross Davis, are still serving customers.

"I'm not through with him yet," Kanady said. "I found some more tools in the basement."