Williams news., 1922-07-07

person who sent it was dead? In
 that case, connection of Alan with the
 place where he belonged was per-
 manently broken. Or would some other
 communication from that source reach
 him some time-if not money, then
 something else? Would he be sent for
 some day?
 Externally, Alan's 1eArning the little
 that was known about himself made
 no change in his war of living; he
 went to she town Scbr Ol, which com
 bined grammar an+ high schools
 under one roof and, aa he grew older,
 he clerket in one of sae town stores
 during vacations and in the evenings. Alan always carried his money home as part payment of those arrears which
 had mounted up against him since the letters ceased coming. At seventeen. having finished high school, he was cferking officially in MerrilFs general store, when the next letter came.
 It was addressed this time not to papa, but to Alan Conrad. He seized it, tore 1t open, and a bank draft for fifteen hundred dollars fell out. There was no letter with the enclosure. no word of communication just the draft to the order of Alan Conrad. Alan wrote the Chicago bank by which the draft had been issued; their reply showed that the draft had been pur- chased with currency, so there was no record of the identity of the person who had sent 1t. More than that amount was due for arrears for the seven years during which no money was sent. even when the total which Alan had earned was deducted. So Alan merely endorsed the draft over to father: and that fall Jim. Alan's foster brother. went to college. But. when Jim discovered that 1t not only was possible but planned at the uni versity for a boy to work his way through, Alan went also.
 Four wonderful years followed. In companionship with educated people: iGeaS end manners came to him which he could not have acquired at home: athletics strengthened and added bear ing to his muscular, well-formed body: his pleasant, strong young face acquired self-reliance and self-controI. life became filled with possibilities for himself which 1t had never held before.
 But on his day of graduation he had put. away the enterprises he had planned and the dreams he dreamed and, conscious that his debt to father and mother still remained unpaid, he had returned to care for them; for fathers health had failed and Jim. who had opened law office in Kansas City. could do nothing to help.
 No more money had followed the daft from Chicago and there had been no communication of any kind; but the receipt of so considerable a sum had revived and intensified all Alan's speculations about himself The vague expectation of his childhood that sometime, in some way, he would be "sent for'; had grown during the last six years to a definite belief. And now-on the afternoon before the summons had come.
 This time, as he tore open the en- velope, he saw that beside a check, there was writing whitman uneven and nervous-iooking but plainly legible in longhand. The letter made no explanation. It told him, rather than asked him, to come to Chicago, gave minute instructions for the journey, and advised him to telegraph when he started. The check was for a hundred dollars to pay his expenses. Check and letter were. signed by a name completely to him.
 He was u1SClnctly aIIracClVe LOOK ing lad, as he stood now on the station platform of the little town, while the eastbound train rumbled in, and he fingered in, his pocket the letter from Chicago. ss..-
 On the train he took the letter from his pocket and for the dozenth time reread it. Was Covert a relative? Was he the man who had sent the remit tances when Alan. was a little boy. and sttfe one who later had sent the fifteen hundred dollars? Or was he a go-between. perhaps law yer? There was no letterhead to give aid in these speculations. The ad- dress to which Alan was to come was in Astor street. He had never heard the name of the street before. Was it a business street, COrvet'S address in some great office building, perhaps?
 At Chicago Alan, following the porter with his suitcase from the car, stepped down among the crowds hurrying to and from the trains. He was not confused. he was only in- tensely excited. Acting in implicit ac- cord with the instructions of the letter. which he knew by heart, he went to the uniformed attendant and engaged a taxicab-itself no small experience to meet him, the letter had said. He gave the lAstor street address and got into the cab-
 It had begun to snow heavily. For a few blocks the taxicab drove north rast more or less ordinary build ings, then turned east on broad