Oh, Kate, but your letter made me happy. I just carry it round with me
and take a peep at it every once in a while to make sure it is real. You
say when setting alone you have been thinking and you want to go
straight when you come out for Billy's sake. I understood how you feel
about me giving him away and that it was a rotten trick for me to play
you, but I didn't know what else to do then. And then you feel so glad
to have him back and know you can see him again, that it has kinda
braced you up. Now, perhaps if I had not give him away, and he hadn't
been nearly drowned, you wouldn't have had the scare about losing him,
and you wouldn't never have known how much you cared for him. Oh, Kate,
I just feel it in my bones that we are going to be happy as goats when
you get out. We will shake Jim someway, and anyway, it will be a long
time before he is out, and we will begin over again and you will keep
house for Billy and me and--I just can't talk I am so happy. Heaven's
going to have to offer a lot to coax Nancy Lane away from little old New
York when all these pipes come true.
Yours,
_Nan_.