love with your empty house.
Father (he was a Captain in the Navy and there was never
anybody like him in the world!)--Father leaned over the gate
and said if he was only rich he would drive the horse into the
barn and buy the place that very day; and mother said it would
be a beautiful spot to bring up a family. We children had
wriggled under the fence, and were climbing the apple trees by
that time, and we wanted to be brought up there that very
minute. We all of us look back to that day as the happiest one
that we can remember. Mother laughs when I talk of looking
back, because I am not sixteen yet, but I think, although we did
not know it, God knew that father was going to die and we were
going to live in that very spot afterwards. Father asked us
what we could do for the place that had been so hospitable to
us, and I remembered a box of plants in the carryall, that we
had bought at a wayside nursery, for the flower beds in
Charlestown. "Plant something!" I said, and father thought it
was a good idea and took a little crimson rambler rose bush
from the box. Each of us helped make the place for it by taking
a turn with the luncheon knives and spoons; then I planted the
rose and father took off his hat and said, "Three cheers for
the Yellow House!" and mother added, "God bless it, and the
children who come to live in it!"--There is surely something
strange in that, don't you think so? Then when father died
last year we had to find a cheap and quiet place to live, and
I remembered the Yellow House in Beulah and told mother my
idea. She does not say "Bosh!" like some mothers, but if our
ideas sound like anything she tries them; so she sent Gilbert
to see if the house was still vacant, and when we found it
was, we took it. The rent is sixty dollars a year, as I
suppose Bill Harmon told you when he sent you mother's check
for fifteen dollars for the first quarter. We think it is very
reasonable, and do not wonder you don't like to spend anything
on repairs or improvements for us, as you have to pay taxes
and insurance. We hope you will have a good deal over for your
own use out of our rent, as we shouldn't like to feel under
obligation. If we had a million we'd spend it all on the
Yellow House, because we are fond of it in the way you are
fond of a person; it's not only t