all the members of the family. It
was scarred by blots and erasures; in some places William had obviously
"stuck" on words, and, after writing them as he thought they should be
spelled, had consulted the dictionary to make sure, and had re-written
them.

This is what Sally read:--

"DEAR SALLY,--The Toronto baseball team is on the top of the heap
again, and all the rest of the bunch is laying around like old tin cans
waiting for the garbage man to collect them. Looks like the pennant
for us. I'm half crazy about the team, so's Tommy Watson, and the
other half of him's bughouse about Flo Dearmore, so he's a rare subject.

"Lucien's all right now. He's surprising me all the time. A husky kid
came into the office to-day with a message and got kind of sassy when I
told him the boss was out on business, so I gave him a swat in the eye,
and he was just about wiping the floor with me when Lucien tackled him,
and in about five minutes that kid was a sight to see. He cried
fierce, but Lucien wouldn't quit till he said he'd behave himself the
next time. So I says to Lucien, 'Well, if you ain't the artist with
your fists; where in Sam Hill did you pick that up?' and he says his Pa
used to be a pretty good boxer and gave him lessons. And me thinking
yet in spite of the fire that he was a kind of sissy boy. So I began
to believe what Tommy Watson says, that you can't tell what's in a
fellow until he has a chance to show it, and lots of fellows ain't
going around hunting up chances, they just wait till one comes.
Anyway, Lucien's a pippin.

"My Pa got another man to work for him, and he's bought a team of
mules. Mules are the dickens to work steady all the time. Pa says he
don't know yet which has the most sense, the mules or the new man, but
the man's good and honest, and the more work he gets, the more he
smiles, and smiles is about all the language he has. I never saw a man
what could say so much with a smile. Honest, the horses and mules get
frisky the minute he gets into the stable, like they were saying, 'Here
he is, cheer up.' When he gets them, Pa tells the bunch at home the
mules ain't brought up in no riding school, but Pete's not hearing very
well or something, and the first chance he gets tries to prove Pa's
wrong. So Pete's going around now with six stitches on the front of
his brain works, and he's that wise about mules a mule doctor couldn't
beat him.

"I told Ma and Pa a lot about you, and Pa sa