Here is a story of real human interest. We are all foreigners here in America except the American Indians. The ancestors of some of us came before those of others; and it is the duty of those of us whose ancestors have been here the longest to help the strange-looking, strange-speaking people who come to us from Europe to feel at home in our country.
The government has tried hard to protect the immigrants from dishonest people who have tried to cheat them out of their earnings. One of the good things that came out of the World's War was a knowledge on the part of almost all of our people of the safe investments that the government offers in bonds and thrift stamps.
"At last the way is clear!"
Stefan spoke with much emotion as he counted the roll of notes, clean and soiled, that lay before him on the table in his little room in the over-crowded boarding house.
As he fingered the bills, he saw before him each detail of the past two years—New York harbor with Liberty flinging up her welcome torch; the thrill of arrival in the city of his dreams; the days that followed, days of discouragement, home-sickness, and poverty, among strangers speaking strange tongues, with a medley of unfamiliar manners and customs. He saw with vivid clearness the first dollar he had earned, and he forgot the slow, painful processes of saving—the self-denial and the sacrifice—in the picture of what those sacrifices were to bring.
"She will come," he murmured. "On the same boat perhaps. When she gets the ticket, she will leave that war-threatened land and she will come to me." He smiled. Then as his face suddenly clouded he started forward on the rickety chair with a violence that threatened its frailness. "If anything should happen! If I should lose the money!"
Greatly disturbed he gathered up the precious bills as though to shield them from possible loss. He rose to place them in the old hiding place in his trunk, but that no longer satisfied him. He wavered, then said:
"No, that won't do. I must see Ian about this. He knows. He is wise. I will see Ian this very minute."
Wrapping the money in a piece of old newspaper and carefully placing it in an inner pocket, he set out. He went straight to the dingy office in a side alley of the foreign section of the town, where through the dusty window could be seen the grizzled head of Ian Skeemersky, the real estate agent and private banker, whose sign, written by his own hand, hung over the entrance.
After greetings had been exchanged, he anxiously put the case before his shrewd friend, whose eyes sparkled with eagerness as he replied smoothly.
"Nothing so easy and so safe in the world, my dear fellow. Put your money in my bank. You will get good interest and can withdraw it whenever you want it."