Your letter bears a well-known postmark, for my father and
my grandfather were born and lived in New Hampshire, "up
Beulah way." I accept your verses because of the beauty of
the picture that accompanied them, and because Christmas
means more than holly and plum pudding and gift-laden trees
to me, for I am a religious man,--a ministerial father and
three family deacons saw to that, though it doesn't always
work that way!--Frankly, I do not expect your card to have a
wide appeal, so I offer you only five dollars.
A Christmas card, my dear madam, must have a greeting, and
yours has none. If the pictured room were a real room, and
some one who had seen or lived in it should recognize it, it
would attract his eye, but we cannot manufacture cards to
meet such romantic improbabilities. I am emboldened to ask
you (because you live in Beulah) if you will not paint the
outside of some lonely, little New Hampshire cottage, as
humble as you like, and make me some more verses; something,
say, about "the folks back home."
Sincerely yours,
REUBEN SMALL.