as he
liked. To be sure, unless "papa" took him to town, there was nothing
for him to spend it upon; so, likely enough, it went into the square
iron bank, of which the key was lost; but quite often he did spend it
according to plans agreed upon among all his friends and, in memory of
these occasions and in anticipation of the next, "Alan's dollar" became
a community institution among the children.

But exhilarating and wonderful as it was to be able of one's self to
take three friends to the circus, or to be the purveyor of twenty whole
packages--not sticks--of gum, yet the dollar really made only more
plain the boy's difference. The regularity and certainty of its
arrival as Alan's share of some larger sum of money which came to
"papa" in the letter, never served to make the event ordinary or
accepted.

"Who gives it to you, Alan?" was a question more often asked, as time
went on. The only answer Alan could give was, "It comes from Chicago."
The postmark on the envelope, Alan noticed, was always Chicago; that
was all he ever could find out about his dollar. He was about ten
years old when, for a reason as inexplicable as the dollar's coming,
the letters with the typewritten addresses and the enclosed money
ceased.

Except for the loss of the dollar at the end of every second month--a
loss much discussed by all the children and not accepted as permanent
till more than two years had passed--Alan felt no immediate results
from the cessation of the letters from Chicago; and when the first
effects appeared, Jim and Betty felt them quite as much as he. Papa
and mamma felt them, too, when the farm had to be given up, and the
family moved to the town, and papa went to work in the woolen mill
beside the river.

Papa and mamma, at first surprised and dismayed by the stopping of the
letters, still clung to the hope of the familiar, typewritten addressed
envelope appearing again; but when, after two years, no more money
came, resentment which had been steadily growing against the person who
had sent the money began to turn against Alan; and his "parents" told
him all they knew about him.

In 1896 they had noticed an advertisement for persons to care for a
child; they had answered it to the office of the newspaper which
printed it. In response to their letter a man called upon them and,
after seeing them and going around to see their friends, had made
arrangements with them to take a boy of three, who was in good healt