Charles let him wait. Very slowly he read all five pages, went back and read them again, moving his lips over the words. Then he folded it up and turned toward the house.

The postmaster called after him, “Anything wrong, Mr. Trask?”

“My father is dead,” Charles said, and he walked into the house and closed the door.

“Took it hard,” the postmaster reported in town. “Took it real hard. Quiet man. Don’t talk much.”

In the house Charles lighted the lamp although it was not dark yet. He laid the letter on the table, and he washed his hands before he sat down to read it again.

There hadn’t been anyone to send him a telegram. The attorneys had found his address among his father’s papers. They were sorry—offered their condolences. And they were pretty excited too. When they had made Trask’s will they thought he might have a few hundred dollars to leave his sons. That is what he looked to be worth. When they inspected his bankbooks they found that he had over ninety-three thousand dollars in the bank and ten thousand dollars in good securities. They felt very different about Mr. Trask then. People with that much money were rich. They would never have to worry. It was enough to start a dynasty. The lawyers congratulated Charles and his brother Adam. Under the will, they said, it was to be shared equally. After the money they listed the personal effects left by the deceased: five ceremonial swords presented to Cyrus at various G.A.R. conventions, an olive wood gavel with a gold plate on it, a Masonic watch charm with a diamond set in the dividers, the gold caps from the teeth he had out when he got his plates, watch (silver), gold-headed stick, and so forth.

Charles read the letter twice more and cupped his forehead in his hands. He wondered about Adam. He wanted Adam home.

Charles felt puzzled and dull. He built up the fire and put the frying pan to heat and sliced thick pieces of salt pork into it. Then he went back to stare at the letter. Suddenly he picked it up and put it in the drawer of the kitchen table. He decided not to think of the matter at all for a while.

Of course he thought of little else, but it was a dull circular thinking that came back to the starting point again and again: Where had he gotten it?

When two events have something in common, in their natures or in time or place, we leap happily to the conclusion that they are similar and from this tendency we create magics and store them for retelling. Charles had never before had a letter delivered at the farm in his life. Some weeks later a boy ran out to the farm with a telegram. Charles always connected the letter and the telegram the way we group two deaths and anticipate a third. He hurried to the village railroad station, carrying the telegram in his hand.