“Yes, indeed. There’s nobody like her. I do hope we can go to see her next summer. Now it’s my turn. I can’t think who this letter is from. Oh, Clarence! Katy, I can’t let you see this. I promised I wouldn’t show his letters to anybody, not even you!”
“Oh, very well. But you’ve got another. Dorry, isn’t it? Read that first, and I’ll go away and leave you in peace.”
So Clover read:—
“Dear Clover,—Elsie says she is going
to write you to-day; but I won’t stop because
next Saturday I’m going out fishing with the
Slacks. There are a great many trout now in Blue
Brook. Eugene caught six the other day,—no,
five, one was a minnow. Papa has given me a
splendid rod, it lets out as tall as a house.
I hope I shall catch with it. Alexander says
the trout will admire it so much that they can’t
help biting; but he was only funning. Elsie and
I play chess most every night. She plays a real
good game for a girl. Sometimes pa helps, and
then she beats. Miss Finch is well. She
don’t keep house quite like Katy did, and I
don’t like her so well as I do you, but she’s
pretty nice. The other day we had a nutting picnic,
and she gave me and Phil a loaf of Election cake and
six quince turnovers to carry. The boys gave
three cheers for her when they saw them. Did
Elsie tell you that I have invented a new machine?
It is called ‘The Intellectual Peach Parer.’
There is a place to hold a book while you pare the
peaches. It is very convenient. I don’t
think of any thing else to tell you. Cecy has
got home, and is going to have a party next week.
She’s grown up now, she says, and she wears
her hair quite different. It’s a great
deal thicker than it used to be. Elsie says
it’s because there are rats in it; but I don’t
believe her. Elsie has got a new friend.
Her name is Helen Gibbs. She’s quite pretty.
“Your
affectionate brother,
Dorry.”
P.S.—John wants to put in a note.”
John’s note was written in a round hand, as easy to read as print.
“Dear Clover,—I am
well, and hope you are the same. I wish you would
write me a letter of my own. I go to school with
Elsie now. We write compossizions. They
are hard to write. We don’t go up into
the loft half so much as we used to when you ware
at home. Mrs. Worrett came to dinner last week.
She says she ways two hundred and atey pounds.
I should think it would be dredful to way that.
I only way 76. My head comes up to the mark
on the door where you ware mesured when you ware twelve.
Isn’t that tal? Good-bye. I send
a kiss to Katy.
Your
loving
“John.”
After they had finished this note, Katy went away, leaving Clover to open Clarence’s letter by herself. It was not so well written or spelt as Dorry’s by any means.