Your loving friend,
HAZEL CLYDE.
P.S. Rose says it is n't fair for people to order without knowing the
quality, so we 've done up a little of Mrs. Blossom's in some Homeepatic
(I don't know where that "h" ought to come in) pellet bottles, and will
send you a half-dozen "for samples," March says, to send to any one to
taste you think would like to order. H.C.
"The cure is working famously," said Doctor Heath, rubbing his hands in
glee.
"Well," said Mr. Clyde, laughing, "I may as well make the best of it;
but I can't help wondering whether the wholesale grocers in town have
been asked to place orders with Mount Hunger, or the Washington Market
dealers for prospective chickens! There 's your office-bell; I won't
keep you longer, but if this 'special case' of yours should develop any
new symptoms, just let me know."
"I 'll keep you informed," rejoined the Doctor. "Better run up there
pretty soon, Johnny," he called after him.
"I think it's high time, Dick. Good-bye."
At that very moment, a symptom of another sort was developing in Z----
Hall, Number 9, at Harvard.
Jack Sherrill and his chum were discussing the last evening's Club
theatricals. "I saw that pretty Maude Seaton in the third or fourth
row, Jack; did she come on for that,--which, of course, means you?"
"Wish I might think so," said Jack, half in earnest, half in jest,
pulling slowly at his corn-cob pipe.
"By Omar Khayyam, Jack! you don't mean to say you 're hit, at last!"
"Hit,--yes; but it's only a flesh-wound at present,--nothing dangerous
about it."
"She 's got the style, though, and the pull. I know a half-dozen of the
fellows got dropped on to-night's cotillion."
"Kept it for me," said Jack, quietly.
"No, really, though--" and his chum fell to thinking rather seriously
for him.
Just then came the morning's mail,--notes, letters, special delivery
stamps, all the social accessories a popular Harvard man knows so well.
Jack looked over his carelessly,--invitations to dinner, to theatre
parties, "private views," golf parties, etc. He pushed them aside,
showing little interest. He, like his Cousin Hazel, was used to it.
The morning's mail was an old story, for Sherrill was worth a fortune in
his own right, as several hundred mothers and daughters in New York and
Boston and Philadelphia knew full well.
Moreover, if he had not had a penny in prospect, Jack Sherrill would
have attracted by his own manly qualities and his exceptionally good
looks. His riches, to which he had been born, had not as yet wholly
spoiled him, but they cheated him of that ambition that makes the best
of young manhood, and Life was out of tune at times--how and why, he did
not know, and there was no one to tell him.
He had rather hoped for a note from Maude Seaton, thanking him, in her
own charming way, for the flowers he had sent her on her arrival from
New York the day before. True, she had worn some in her corsage, but,
for all Jack knew, they might have been another man's; for Maude Seaton
was never known to have less than four or five strings to her bow. It
was just this uncertainty about her that attracted Jack.
"Hello! Here 's a letter for you by mistake in my pile," said his chum.
"Why, this is from my little Cousin Hazel, who is rusticating just now
somewhere in the Green Mountains." Jack opened it hastily and read,--
MOUNT HUNGER, MILL SETTLEMENT, BARTON'S
RIVER, VERMONT, May 19, 1896.
DEAREST COUSIN JACK,--It is perfectly lovely up here, and I 've been
inishiated into a Secret Society like your Dicky Club, and one of the
by-laws is to help others all we can and wherever we can and as long as
ever we can, and so I 've thought of that nice little spread you gave
last year after the foot-ball game, and how nice the table looked and
what good things you had, but I don't remember any strawberry jam or
preserves, do you?
We 're hatching four hundred chickens to help others,--I mean we have
set 40 sitting hens on 520 eggs, not all the 40 on the five hundred and
twenty at once, you know; but, I mean, each one of the 40 hens are
sitting on 13 eggs apiece, and March says we must expect to lose 120
eggs--I mean, chickens,--as the hens are very careless and sit
sideways--I 've seen them myself--and so an extra egg is apt to get
chilly, and the chickens can't stand any chilliness, March says. But
Chi, that's my new friend, says some eggs have a double yolk, and maybe,
there 'll be some twins to make up for the loss.
Anyway, we want 400 chickens to sell about Thanksgiving time, and, of
course, we can't get any money till that time. So now I 've got back to
your spread again and the preserves, and while we 're waiting for the
chickens, we are going to make preserves--_dee_-licious ones! I mean we
are going to pick them and Rose is going to preserve them. We 've
decided to ask $1 and a quarter a quart for them; Rose--that's Rose
Blossom--says it is dear, but if you could see my Rose-pose, as Chi
calls her, you 'd think it cheap just to eat them if she made them. She
's perfectly lovely--prettier than any of the New York girls, and when
she kneads bread and does up the dishes, she sings like a bird,
something about love. I'll write it down for you, sometime. _I 'm_ in
love with her.
Please ask your college friends if they don't want some jam and wild
strawberry preserves. If they do, March says they had better order
soon, as I've written to New York to see about some other orders.
Yours devotedly,
HAZEL.
P.S. I 've sent you a sample of the strawberry preserve in a homeepahtic
pellet bottle, to taste; Rose says it is n't fair to ask people to buy
without their knowing what they buy. I saw that Miss Seaton just before
I came away; she came to call on me and brought some flowers. She said
I looked like you--which was an awful whopper because I had my head
shaved, as you know; I asked her if she had heard from you, and she said
she had. She is n't half as lovely as Rose-pose. H.C.