P. S. Isn’t that a nice ending? I got it out of Stevenson’s
letters.
Saturday.
Good morning again! I didn’t get this _enveloped_ yesterday before
the postman came, so I’ll add some more. We have one mail a day at
twelve o’clock. Rural delivery is a blessing to the farmers! Our
postman not only delivers letters, but he runs errands for us in
town, at five cents an errand. Yesterday he brought me some
shoe-strings and a jar of cold cream (I sunburned all the skin off
my nose before I got my new hat) and a blue Windsor tie and a bottle
of blacking all for ten cents. That was an unusual bargain, owing to
the largeness of my order.
Also he tells us what is happening in the Great World. Several
people on the route take daily papers, and he reads them as he jogs
along, and repeats the news to the ones who don’t subscribe. So in
case a war breaks out between the United States and Japan, or the
president is assassinated, or Mr. Rockefeller leaves a million
dollars to the John Grier Home, you needn’t bother to write; I’ll
hear it anyway.
No sign yet of Master Jervie. But you should see how clean our house
is--and with what anxiety we wipe our feet before we step in!
I hope he’ll come soon; I am longing for some one to talk to. Mrs.
Semple, to tell you the truth, gets sort of monotonous. She never
lets ideas interrupt the easy flow of her conversation. It’s a
funny thing about the people here. Their world is just this single
hilltop. They are not a bit universal, if you know what I mean.
It’s exactly the same as at the John Grier Home. Our ideas there
were bounded by the four sides of the iron fence, only I didn’t
mind it so much because I was younger and was so awfully busy. By
the time I’d got all my beds made and my babies’ faces washed and
had gone to school and come home and had washed their faces again
and darned their stockings and mended Freddie Perkins’s trousers
(he tore them every day of his life) and learned my lessons in
between--I was ready to go to bed, and I didn’t notice any lack of
social intercourse. But after two years in a conversational college,
I do miss it; and I shall be glad to see somebody who speaks my
language.
I really believe I’ve finished, Daddy. Nothing else occurs to me at
the moment--I’ll try to write a longer letter next time.
Yours always,