The Black Wolf Pack | Page 3

look in her eyes that dad had told her of the
whole occurrence. And that only added to my unhappiness because I
felt for a certainty that all that Blink Broosmore had shouted must be
true.
For the first time in my memory dad forgot to say grace, and none of us

ate with any apparent relish and none of us tried to make conversation.
It was a painful sort of a meal and I wanted to have it over with as soon
as I could. It seemed hours before Nora cleared the table and served
dad's demi-tasse.
I guess I then looked him full in the eyes for the first time since the
occurrence on Front Street.
"That was a very unkind thing for Blink Broosmore to do," said dad,
and I knew by the firmness and evenness of his voice that he had
gained full control of his feelings.
"Is--is--oh, did he tell the truth, dad?" I gulped helplessly and for the
life of me I could not keep back the tears.
"Unfortunately, Donald, there is just enough truth in it to make it hurt,"
said dad and I could see mother wince as if she had been struck, and
turn away her face.
"They why--why? Oh! who am I?" I cried, for the whole thing had
completely unnerved me.
"Don dear, we do not know to a certainty," said mother struggling with
her emotions.
"But now that you are partly aware of the situation, I think there is a
way you can find out, at least as much as we know," said dad, getting
up and going into the library.
Through the doorway I could see him fumbling at the safe that he kept
there beside the desk. Presently he drew out a battered and dented red
tin box and a bundle of papers. These he brought into the dining room
and laid on the table. Then he drew up a chair, cleared his throat, rather
loudly it seemed to me, and began.
"Don, we always wanted a child, and why the Lord never blessed us
with one of our own we do not know. Anyway, we wanted one so badly
that we decided to adopt one. That was seventeen years ago, wasn't it,

mother?"
Mother nodded.
"Doctor Raymond, the physician at the county institution, knew our
desires and, being an old friend of the family, he volunteered to find us
a good healthy baby that we could adopt and call our own. Not a week
later you appeared on the scene. Dr. Raymond told us that a wagon
drawn by a raw-boned horse, and loaded with household goods, drew
up to the orphanage and a tired and worn-out looking old lady got out
with a lusty year old child in one arm and this box and these papers
under the other.
"At the office of the asylum she explained how she and her husband
were moving from a Connecticut town to a little farm they had bought
in Pennsylvania. Somewhere at a crossroad near Derby, Connecticut,
they had found the baby and this box and bundle of papers in a basket
under a bush with a card attached to the basket requesting that the
finder adopt and take care of the baby.
"Of course, they could not pass the infant by, but the woman explained
that they were too poor and too old to adopt the child so they had gone
miles out of their way to find an orphanage and leave the baby there,
along with the box and papers.
"When Dr. Raymond heard the story and saw you, for you were the
baby, he got me on the telephone and told me all about you. And that
night he brought you here, and you were such a chubby, bright,
interesting little fellow that mother and I fell in love with you
immediately and decided to adopt you, which we did according to law.
So you are our legal child, Don, and all that, although we are not your
real parents."
Somehow that made me feel a little happier. Dad and mother did have a
claim on me at least. That was something.
"It was not until after Dr. Raymond had left," went on father, "that
mother and I examined the box and papers that had come with you.

Here they are."
Dad took up a worn and age-yellowed envelope addressed in a bold
hand:
To the Finder
Inside was the following brief message:
TO THE FINDER:--
The mother of this child, Donald Mullen, is dead. I, his father, cannot
give him the care he should have. Will you, the finder, adopt him, care
for him, and bring him up to be an honest, trustworthy man, and win
the eternal gratitude of his dead mother and
DONALD MULLEN,