The Adair County news., 1922-10-03

He was fond Of drawing pictures.
This was nothing in itself; many lit
tie boys are fond of drawing pictures
Nor were his unusually good. Their
7stEangeness lay in his subjects. He
liked to draw animals in particular
the animals he read about In school
and In such books as were brought
10 him. And sometimes he drew In
when he wasn't half watching what
he was doing-he drew something
quite different.
Perhaps he wouldn't have looked at
1t twice, if the teacher hadn't stepped
up behind him and taken it out of his
hands. 1t was geography" then, not
drawing" and he should have been
raging attention" And he had every
reason to think that the teacher would
Uumple up his picture and send him
to the cloak-room for punishment.
But she did no such thing. When
her eyes glanced down, her fingers
SLOWLY Strengthened. Then she looked
aEaiR-carefully.
~What is this, Bruce" she asked.
What have you been drawihg?"
81 don't know" the child an
zwered. He looked and for an instant
Eef his thoughts go wandering here
and there "Those are trees" he
said. A word caught at his throat and
he blurted it out. "Pinesi Pine trees,
growing on a mountain"
SHNot bad for a six-year-old boy"
the teacher commented. "But where,
Bruce, have you ever seen or heard
OF such pines?" But Bruce did not
know.
Another puzzling adventure that
stuck in Bruce's memory had happened
-JRIy a few months after his arrival
at the Square house, when man had
saken him home on trial with the idea
"ssf adoption.
all the incidents and details of the
excursion with this prospective parent
were extremely dim and vague He
did not know to what city he went.
nor had he any recollection whatever
of the people he met there. But he did
EaRenber, with remarkable clearness,
the perplexing talk that the man and
the superintendent of the Square
house had together on his return.
"He won't do" the stranger had
said. 'T tried him out and he won't
HifI in in my family. And I've fetched
Slim back.
81 believe in being frank, and tell
VOC there's something vicious in that
boys nature. 1t came out the very
6rst moment he was in the house,
When the MisSus was introducing him
TO my eight-year-old son. This is lit
tie Turner she said-and this boy
sprang right at him. I'd never let
little Turner learn to fight, and this
boy was on top of him and was pound
Ing him with his fists before we could
pull him off. Il didn't understand it
at ail.'
Nor did the superintendent under
stand; NORM these later years
Bruce either.
He was quite a big boy, nearly ten,
when he finally left the Square house
And there was nothing Pickering or
dim about the memory of this occasion.
A tall, exceedingly slender man sat
beside the window-a man well
dressed but with hard lines about his
mouth and hard eyes. Yet the superin-
te1dent seemed particularly anxious
10 please him. "You will like this
sturdy fellow" he said, as Bruce was
7Qshered in. ~
The mans eyes Travelled slowly from
the child's curly head to his rapidly
growing feet; but no CLEAN of inter-
est came into the thin face. 81 sup
pose he'll do-as good as any. 1t was
the wife's idea, anyway, you know
What about parentage? Anything de-
cent at all?'
The superintendent seemed to wait
"a long time before answering. Little
Bruce, already full of secret conjec-
Ttures as to his OWE parentage, thought
that some key might be given him at
last. "There is nothing that we can
tell you, Mr.. Duncan" he said at
Hast "a woman brought him here
with an infant girl-when he was
about Sour. I suppose she was his
mother-and she didn't wait to talk
to me. The nurse said that she wore
sOutlandish clothes and had plainly had
a hard time"
1But she didn't wait-?"
She dropped her children and fed
Aseold little smile fiickered at the
snanss lips. SIT looks rather dam
5n1ble." he said significantly. But III
take The Tittle beggar, anyway"
AAad thus Bruce went to the cold
firestde Of the Duncans-a house in
a great and distant city where, in the
years that had passed, many things
scarcely worth remembering had tran
sptred. It was gentleman's house
as Gar sas the meaning of the word
usually gses-and Bruce had been af-
forded a gentleman's education. There
was also, for while, certain amount
of rather doubtful prosperity, wom-
an who died after a few months Of
casual interest in him, and many,