tnightly, the Red Cross, the Woman's Club,
The Emergency Aid, The Fire Company. It was kind in them but he wasn't
keen about it just then. It could wait until he got his dinner. They
didn't have roast beef every day, and now that he thought about it he was
hungry.

He almost forgot the letter after dinner until a comrade reminded him,
handing over a thick delicately scented envelope with a silver crest on
the back. The boys got off their kidding about "the girl he'd left behind
him" and he answered with his old good-natured grin that made them love
him, letting them think he had all kinds of girls, for the dinner had
somewhat restored his spirits, but he crumpled the letter into his pocket
and got away into the woods to read it.

Deliberately he walked down the yellow road, up over the hill by the
signal corps tents, across Wig-Wag Park to the woods beyond, and sat down
on a log with his letter. He told himself that it was likely one of those
fool letters the fellows were getting all the time from silly girls who
were uniform-crazy. He wouldn't answer it, of course, and he felt a kind
of contempt with himself for being weak enough to read it even to satisfy
his curiosity.

Then he tore open the envelope half angrily and a faint whiff of violets
floated out to him. Over his head a meadow lark trilled a long sweet
measure, and glad surprise suddenly entered into his soul.

V

The letter was written in a fine beautiful hand and even before he saw
the silver monogram at the top, he knew who was the writer, though he did
not even remember to have seen the writing before:

MY DEAR FRIEND:

I have hesitated a long time before writing because I do not know that I
have the right to call you a friend, or even an acquaintance in the
commonly accepted sense of that term. It is so long since you and I went
to school together, and we have been so widely separated since then that
perhaps you do not even remember me, and may consider my letter an
intrusion. I hope not, for I should hate to rank with the girls who are
writing to strangers under the license of mistaken patriotism.

My reason for writing you is that a good many years ago you did something
very nice and kind for me one day, in fact you helped me twice, although
I don't suppose you knew it. Then the other day, when you were going to
camp and I sat in my car and watched you, it suddenly came over me that
you were doing it again; this time a great big wonderf