't belong to anybody, anyhow.

Glen had promptly forced this tormentor to acknowledge that he did not
know what he was talking about; but the taunt rankled all the same. A
few days afterwards, which happened to be the one that was kept as his
seventeenth birthday, he told his father of it, and asked what it meant.

Then Luke Matherson, greatly troubled, but seeing that the secret could
not be kept any longer from the boy, told him what he knew of his
history. He ended with, "It is fifteen years ago this very day, Glen,
that the terrible wreck took place; and, as you were then thought to be
about two years old, I have called this your birthday ever since."

The boy was amazed and bewildered. No idea that the one whom he had
always called "father" was not such in reality had ever entered his
head; but now that the truth was told him, it seemed strange that he had
not always known it instinctively. He had known that Mrs. Matherson was
not his own mother, for he was five years old when she assumed that
position, and of course he had always known that the two children were
not his own sisters, though he loved them as dearly as though they were.
But now to find out that he did not really belong to anybody was hard.

Who were his real parents? Were they alive? Could he find them? were
questions that now began to occupy the boy's mind most of the time.

One of the strangest things about this state of affairs was to discover
that his birthday was not his birthday after all. It seemed as though
some foundation on which he had rested in absolute trust of its security
had suddenly been swept from under him, and left him struggling in a
stormy sea of uncertainty.

The idea of a boy without a birthday! Who ever heard of such a thing?
How the other fellows would stare and smile if they knew it! Glen had
been so proud of his birthday, too, and it had been made so much of at
home. His favorite dishes were always prepared for the meals of that
day, his tastes were consulted in everything that was done, and his
father always made a point of giving him a more valuable present then
than even at Christmas. Why, on the last one, the very day on which the
boy first learned how unreal the whole thing was, his father--no, his
adopted father--had given him the dearest little silver watch that ever
was seen.

Many times since learning such a sad lesson in the uncertainties of
life, Glen had pulled this watch from his pocket, simply to assure