hy, he would call her his friend, of course, that
was what she had called him. And as he wrote he seemed to see her again
as she sat in her car by the station the day he started on his long, long
trail and their eyes had met. Looking so into her eyes again, he wrote
straight from his soul:

MY DEAR FRIEND:

Your letter has just reached me after travelling about for weeks. I am
not going to try to tell you how wonderful it is to me to have it. In
fact, the wonder began that morning I left home when you smiled at me and
waved a friendly farewell. It was a great surprise to me. I had not
supposed until that moment that you remembered my existence. Why should
you? And it has never been from lack of desire to do so that I failed to
greet you when we passed in the street. I did not think that I, a mere
little hoodlum from your infant days, had a right to intrude upon your
grown-up acquaintance without a hint from you that such recognition would
be agreeable. I never blamed you for not speaking of course. Perhaps I
didn't give you the chance. I simply thought I had grown out of your
memory as was altogether natural. It was indeed a pleasant experience to
see that light of friendliness in your eyes at the station that day, and
to know it was a real personal recognition and not just a patriotic gush
of enthusiasm for the whole shabby lot of us draftees starting out to an
unknown future. I thanked you in my heart for that little bit of personal
friendliness but I never expected to have an opportunity to thank you in
words, nor to have the friendliness last after I had gone away. When your
letter came this morning it sure was some pleasant surprise. I know you
have a great many friends, and plenty of people to write letters to, but
somehow there was a real note of comradeship in the one you wrote me, not
as if you just felt sorry for me because I had to go off to war and fight
and maybe get killed. It was as if the conditions of the times had
suddenly swept away a lot of foolish conventions of the world, which may
all have their good use perhaps at times, but at a time like this are
superfluous, and you had just gravely and sweetly offered me an old
friend's sympathy and good will. As such I have taken it and am rejoicing
in it.

Don't make any mistake about this, however. I never have forgotten you or
the rose! I stole it from the Wainwright's yard after I got done licking
Chuck, and I had a fight with Hal Wainwright over it wh