Angel of Ava

Ava, the county seat of Douglas County in Missouri's Ozarks, was named out of the Bible. Pioneer Jim Hailey saw the word of II Kings, xvii, 24, liked it. Two months ago, the folk of Ava began to think they could hear the wings of an angel over their town. First, Mrs. E. E. Lawson, whose husband was formerly a storekeeper, now runs a filling station in Ava, got a mysterious letter. It was a cashier's check for $100 with a note attached, which read: ''With the compliments of an oldtime friend." Pleased but puzzled, she wrote the Bank of Union, Mo., on which the check was drawn, to see whether they knew who had sent it. Their description of the man who had bought the check fitted no one Mrs. Lawson knew. The name he had given the bank: Lawson.

A few weeks later, Jack Blair, who also had run a store in Ava, got a cashier's check for $100 in his mail. Soon two more checks came for two other ex-merchants of Ava: $100 for Brush Judd, $150 for Luther Story. Mr. Story did not have his glasses on when his letter came, thought at first the check was an advertising coupon and started to throw it away. In the same strange manner, a $100 check came for Mrs. Grace Singleton, whose husband died last June. Widow Singleton used the money to pay off a note at the bank, buy seed oats for her farm.

Whoever the Angel of Ava was, he was someone who knew the neighborhood. How else could he have known about J. E. Mackey, storekeeper of neighboring Rome, who had gone to Costa Mesa, Calif, to live? Mackey was the next to get a $100 surprise. The next, Mrs. Henry S. Wilson, another widow of an Ava merchant, straightway ran across the street to show her friend old Dr. Jasper Leonard Gentry her check for $50. Said she: "You'll be next to get one of these."

"Why, they've even forgotten I'm here," said Dr. Gentry. Five minutes later in came his mail; in it was a check for $80, and a note: "I was sick and ye ministered unto me. Every man shall be rewarded for his work."

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