tions. But this simple
and homely phrase touched her country heart. What did "groing weather"
matter to the toilers in this waste of brick and mortar? This stranger
must be, like herself, a country-bred soul, longing for the new green
and the upturned brown mold of the country fields. She took up the
paper, and wrote under the first message:--

_Fine_

But that seemed curt: "for--" she added; "for" what? She did not know.
At last in desperation she put down "potatoes." The piece of paper was
withdrawn, and came back with an addition:--

_Too mist for potatos_

And when the little seamstress had read this, and grasped the fact that
"m-i-s-t" represented the writer's pronunciation of "moist," she laughed
softly to herself. A man whose mind at such a time was seriously bent
upon potatoes was not a man to be feared. She found a half-sheet of
note-paper, and wrote:--

_I lived in a small village before I came to New York, but I am
afraid I do not know much about farming. Are you a farmer?_

The answer came:--

_have ben most Every thing
farmed a Spel in Maine
Smith_

As she read this, the seamstress heard the church clock strike nine.

"Bless me, is it so late?" she cried, and she hurriedly penciled _Good
Night_, thrust the paper out, and closed the window. But a few minutes
later, passing by, she saw yet another bit of paper on the cornice,
fluttering in the evening breeze. It said only _good nite_, and after a
moment's hesitation, the little seamstress took it in and gave it
shelter.

* * * * *

After this they were the best of friends. Every evening the pot
appeared, and while the seamstress drank from it at her window, Mr.
Smith drank from its twin at his; and notes were exchanged as rapidly as
Mr. Smith's early education permitted. They told each other their
histories, and Mr. Smith's was one of travel and variety, which he
seemed to consider quite a matter of course. He had followed the sea, he
had farmed, he had been a logger and a hunter in the Maine woods. Now he
was foreman of an East River lumber-yard, and he was prospering. In a
year or two he would have enough laid by to go home to Bucksport and buy
a share in a ship-building business. All this dribbled out in the course
of a jerky but variegated correspondence, in which autobiographic
details were mixed with reflections moral and philosophical.

A few samples will give