The postmaster angrily shuffled through the letters from the T box and tossed out a long envelope. “Well, I’ll see you in the hospital,” he said viciously.

Adam smiled at him and took his letter and walked out.

A man who gets few letters does not open one lightly. He hefts it for weight, reads the name of the sender on the envelope and the address, looks at the handwriting, and studies the postmark and the date. Adam was out of the post office and across the sidewalk to his Ford before he had done all of these things. The left-hand corner of the envelope had printed on it, Bellows and Harvey, Attorneys at Law, and their address was the town in Connecticut from which Adam had come.

He said in a pleasant tone, “Why, I know Bellows and Harvey, know them well. I wonder what they want?” He looked closely at the envelope. “I wonder how they got my address?” He turned the envelope over and looked at the back. Lee watched him, smiling. “Maybe the questions are answered in the letter.”

“I guess so,” Adam said. Once having decided to open the letter, he took out his pocketknife, opened the big blade, and inspected the envelope for a point of ingress, found none, held the letter up to the sun to make sure not to cut the message, tapped the letter to one end of the envelope, and cut off the other end. He blew in the end and extracted the letter with two fingers. He read the letter very slowly.

“Mr. Adam Trask, King City, California, Dear Sir,” it began testily, “For the last six months we have exhausted every means of locating you. We have advertised in newspapers all over the country without success. It was only when your letter to your brother was turned over to us by the local postmaster that we were able to ascertain your whereabouts.” Adam could feel their impatience with him. The next paragraph began a complete change of mood. “It is our sad duty to inform you that your brother Charles Trask is deceased. He died of a lung ailment October 12 after an illness of two weeks, and his body rests in the Odd Fellows cemetery. No stone marks his grave. We presume you will want to undertake this sorrowful duty yourself.”

Adam drew a deep full breath and held it while he read the paragraph again. He breathed out slowly to keep the release from being a sigh. “My brother Charles is dead,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” said Lee.

Cal said, “Is he our uncle?”

“He was your Uncle Charles,” said Adam.

“Mine too?” Aron asked.

“Yours too.”

“I didn’t know we had him,” Aron said. “Maybe we can put some flowers on his grave. Abra would help us. She likes to.”

“It’s a long way off—clear across the country.”

Aron said excitedly, “I know! When we take flowers to our mother we’ll take some to our Uncle Charles.” And he said a little sadly, “I wish’t I knew I had him before he was dead.” He felt that he was growing rich in dead relatives. “Was he nice?” Aron asked.