Sally read that letter, sitting in the porch in her wheeled chair;
first to herself, and later aloud to all the members of the family. It
was scarred by blots and erasures; in some places William had obviously
"stuck" on words, and, after writing them as he thought they should be
spelled, had consulted the dictionary to make sure, and had re-written
them.
This is what Sally read:--
"DEAR SALLY,--The Toronto baseball team is on the top of the heap
again, and all the rest of the bunch is laying around like old tin cans
waiting for the garbage man to collect them. Looks like the pennant
for us. I'm half crazy about the team, so's Tommy Watson, and the
other half of him's bughouse about Flo Dearmore, so he's a rare subject.
"Lucien's all right now. He's surprising me all the time. A husky kid
came into the office to-day with a message and got kind of sassy when I
told him the boss was out on business, so I gave him a swat in the eye,
and he was just about wiping the floor with me when Lucien tackled him,
and in about five minutes that kid was a sight to see. He cried
fierce, but Lucien wouldn't quit till he said he'd behave himself the
next time. So I says to Lucien, 'Well, if you ain't the artist with
your fists; where in Sam Hill did you pick that up?' and he says his Pa
used to be a pretty good boxer and gave him lessons. And me thinking
yet in spite of the fire that he was a kind of sissy boy. So I began
to believe what Tommy Watson says, that you can't tell what's in a
fellow until he has a chance to show it, and lots of fellows ain't
going around hunting up chances, they just wait till one comes.
Anyway, Lucien's a pippin.
"My Pa got another man to work for him, and he's bought a team of
mules. Mules are the dickens to work steady all the time. Pa says he
don't know yet which has the most sense, the mules or the new man, but
the man's good and honest, and the more work he gets, the more he
smiles, and smiles is about all the language he has. I never saw a man
what could say so much with a smile. Honest, the horses and mules get
frisky the minute he gets into the stable, like they were saying, 'Here
he is, cheer up.' When he gets them, Pa tells the bunch at home the
mules ain't brought up in no riding school, but Pete's not hearing very
well or something, and the first chance he gets tries to prove Pa's
wrong. So Pete's going around now with six stitches on the front of
his brain works, and he's that wise about mules a mule doctor couldn't
beat him.
"I told Ma and Pa a lot about you, and Pa says he'd like to know you.
He's great on people what has a lot to put up with, and don't shout
about it. And Ma she looks at Dolly, and says, 'God bless her,'
meaning you.
"Jimmy Duggan, you remember I told you all about him, he wants to bring
in some bills when the Provincial House meets, and he says to ask your
father and the boys to think something up, because he says the city
people have so many crazy schemes he's afraid to try anything for them.
So ask them, please.
"My feet are tired chasing letters to you know who for Mister Whimple.
She's a fine lady though, and I hope the boss will marry her. When I
took a note up yesterday, she was talking to me about my visit, so I
told her a lot of things I thought she's like and about your brother
George going courting, and she says, 'It's a terrible thing this love,
William,' and I asked her does she suffer much from it. So she blushes
awful red, and looked prettier than ever, and says kind of like she
didn't remember I was around, 'Most women do--most women do, and I
never really knew until now what love was.' Now what do you think of
that, and her married once before! Mister Simmons, he's Lucien's boss,
he says her husband was an awful booze fighter right till he died, and
my Pa says there ain't any man yet that's ever been able to win a fight
against booze so long as he's willing to let booze get into his inwards.
"I guess this letter will make you awful tired, specially if it's a hot
day, but there's seems to be so much I'd like to tell you. You
remember the old man I told you about that I collect rent from, the
fellow that has rheumatics. He's getting quite chummy with me now. I
was there the other day, and he hardly swore at all. He says he's
sorry he's wasted so many good cuss words on me when he's got so many
relatives waiting for him to die so's they can get his money. Honest,
the way he curses about those people is awful. I told Tommy Watson
about him one day, and Tommy says the Good Book is dead against wasting
anything. A man like that, he says, could make a great hit by saving
all his curses for one year, and then letting them loose on one of the
people he don't love. Whoever got them would never forget, and they'd
think more of Mister Jonas than they do with him throwing curses around
as though they were cheaper than newspapers.
"Tommy's got a great set of hired help in his store. One of them's
from Aberdeen, and the other from London, England, and you ought to
hear them. Say, they're fighting all the time about the battle of
Bannock-Burn, a million years ago or so. I butted in one day, and
says, 'Well, ain't that battle over long ago?' and I got what was
coming to me all right, just like butters-in usually does. They got me
in a corner and talked at me for half an hour straight. When one would
stop to draw his breath, the other would go on talking. I began to
feel sick--real sick--no joking, and all of a sudden I burst out
laughing. I don't know what for, I didn't want to laugh, I felt more
like crying, but, by ginger, I couldn't stop. I laughed, and laughed,
and then some more, and the tears were running down my cheeks all the
time, and I was rolling around like I had wheels for feet. So those
two ninnies began to look solemn, and the Englishman shook me a bit,
but I couldn't stop. Then he began to snicker like a chump, and first
thing he knew he was hanging over one of Tommy's bargain bedsteads just
laughing, laughing, laughing, though it was more like crying too. The
Scotchman started next, and every time he laughed he rolled into
something until he fell on the floor and just lay there laughing.
"I suppose we'd be laughing yet or else dead of it, only Tommy came in.
He took one look around and his face got awful white. He asked me
something, but I could only sputter, then he tried the Scotchman, but
he only rolled some more--gee! it makes me giggle to think of it. So
Tommy rushed to the 'phone and called up a doctor, and then he ran out
of the store and got a cop, and when he gets him in he says to the cop,
'They're dying,' and the cop says, 'Like blazes they're dying,' he
says. So that got me going worse than ever, and the cop was beginning
to snicker too. So he pulls out his baton and he yells out, 'I'll
knock the block off the first yap that lets out another laugh,' and he
gives the Englishman a poke in the slats to show he meant it. And you
bet we quit on the spot. Me, I made a grand sneak the minute I found I
could stand straight, and just as I'm getting out, in rushes a doctor.
Tommy told me after he had to give the doctor four dollars, but the
money was nothing to the way he sweated trying to explain.
"The next time I write I hope it'll be better written. I've found a
place where I can take night lessons three times a week in history and
reading and writing, and you bet I'm taking them.
"With best wishes to everybody and hoping George is getting along all
right with his courting.
"W. A. T.
"P.S.--Lucien is showing me how to box every chance we get."
William deliberately omitted from his letter a conversation with Miss
Whimple regarding Sally. He had made a special journey to see the lady
because he remembered hearing her say something about wonderful cures
at a certain hospital to the work of which she had given time and
money. She heard him through, touched by the depth of his feeling for
the sufferer, and promised to make inquiries of the surgical staff as
to what could be done.
"Don't be too hopeful, William," she said, kindly, "they cannot really
tell until they see the patient. But they've done almost everything
except furnish new spines; and goodness knows there are many people who
ought to have them if they could be made. There are too many jellyfish
men and women in the world to-day, William."