Since when I have myself fetched and
carried my garments, and they are rapidly taking on the tinge of
prevailing Island grayness. The L.D.W.'s are gentle and gay, and they
love Dan'l and "Angerleek" even if she is "a furriner," and they sigh
that the Deacon is "a good man, but ha'ad." His severity has driven
all the older children away from home, two of them girls. (Wasn't I
right about the Erring Daughters and the Snow?)

I asked Mrs. L.D.W. if I might bestow upon her a tailored suit which
has almost worn me out. She hesitated, shifted the 1920 model in
Low-Down Wilkes to the other hip (babies are their only lavish
luxury!) and allowed she didn't mind, if I was a mind to fetch it
down to the graveyard corner some night after dusk. Every human being
in Three Meadows has seen me wear it and could describe it to the
last stitch and button, and every one will know where she got it.
Nevertheless, in a world of foot-lickers, isn't pride like that
delicious?

I did for myself when I started that indoor circus effect; sentenced
to be Scheherazade! Lady chariot drivers and spotted clowns and
strange beasts swarm through the prim, gray farmhouse. Dan'l has
stayed in bed for two days, and Uncle Robert's chirp is growing
husky.

Between circus performances I'm working like a riverful of beavers.
The best story I've ever written is almost ready to launch.

J. V.

_Tuesday._

DEAR MICHAEL DARAGH, I can't _bear_ it about Dan'l! I don't mean
about his going,--the old doctor is right about that, but oh, that
wretched rover! Dan'l makes loyal excuses for him--he must be sick
again or out of work or too busy; the flame of his faith never burns
dim.

This morning I went to the Deacon. "Look here," I said, "that fellow
will never pay up and Dan'l is breaking his heart." He nodded.
"Well," I went on, "I mean to make up a letter and put in twenty
dollars and send it to a friend of mine in New York to mail back to
Dan'l."

His eagle eye grew bleak. "Falsehood and forgery!" he thundered. "I'm
a plain man, sinful, Adam's seed as we all are, but I never yet
soiled my lips with a lie."

"Oh, you needn't bother about it at all," I assured him. "I'll do the
whole thing. You see, my lips aren't so immaculate, or so fussy!"

"I wunt act a lie, neither," he said.

I could f