h
and came of good people. He paid in advance board for a year and
agreed to send a certain amount every two months after that time. The
man brought the boy, whom he called Alan Conrad, and left him. For
seven years the money agreed upon came; now it had ceased, and papa had
no way of finding the man--the name given by him appeared to be
fictitious, and he had left no address except "general delivery,
Chicago"--Papa knew nothing more than that. He had advertised in the
Chicago papers after the money stopped coming, and he had communicated
with every one named Conrad in or near Chicago, but he had learned
nothing. Thus, at the age of thirteen, Alan definitely knew that what
he already had guessed--the fact that he belonged somewhere else than
in the little brown house--was all that any one there could tell him;
and the knowledge gave persistence to many internal questionings.
Where did he belong? Who was he? Who was the man who had brought him
here? Had the money ceased coming because the person who sent it was
dead? In that case, connection of Alan with the place where he
belonged was permanently 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? He did not resent "papa and
mamma's" new attitude of benefactors toward him; instead, loving them
both because he had no one else to love, he sympathized with it. They
had struggled hard to keep the farm. They had ambitions for Jim; they
were scrimping and sparing now so that Jim could go to college, and
whatever was given to Alan was taken away from Jim and diminished by
just that much his opportunity.

But when Alan asked papa to get him a job in the woolen mill at the
other side of town where papa himself worked in some humble and
indefinite capacity, the request was refused. Thus, externally at
least, Alan's learning the little that was known about himself made no
change in his way of living; he went, as did Jim, to the town school,
which combined grammar and high schools under one roof; and, as he grew
older, he clerked--as Jim also did--in one of the town stores during
vacations and in the evenings; the only difference was this: that Jim's
money, so earned, was his own, but Alan carried his 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 clerking officially