taking it back to Mrs. Balaam. Maybe you can give me your
opinion how it sizes up with the letters they write back East?"

The communication was mainly of a business kind, but also personal,
and freely written. I do not think that its writer expected it to be
exhibited as a document. The writer wished very much that she could see
the West. But she could not gratify this desire merely for pleasure,
or she would long ago have accepted the kind invitation to visit Mrs.
Balaam's ranch. Teaching school was something she would like to do, if
she were fitted for it. "Since the mills failed" (the writer said) "we
have all gone to work and done a lot of things so that mother might keep
on living in the old house. Yes, the salary would be a temptation. But,
my dear, isn't Wyoming bad for the complexion? And could I sue them if
mine got damaged? It is still admired. I could bring one male witness AT
LEAST to prove that!" Then the writer became businesslike again. Even if
she came to feel that she could leave home, she did not at all know that
she could teach school. Nor did she think it right to accept a
position in which one had had no experience. "I do love children, boys
especially," she went on. "My small nephew and I get on famously. But
imagine if a whole benchful of boys began asking me questions that I
couldn't answer! What should I do? For one could not spank them all,
you know! And mother says that I ought not to teach anybody spelling,
because I leave the U out of HONOR."

Altogether it was a letter which I could assure Mr. Taylor "sized up"
very well with the letters written in my part of the United States. And
it was signed, "Your very sincere spinster, Molly Stark Wood."

"I never seen HONOR spelled with a U," said Mr. Taylor, over whose not
highly civilized head certain portions of the letter had lightly passed.

I told him that some old-fashioned people still wrote the word so.

"Either way would satisfy Bear Creek," said Mr. Taylor, "if she's
otherwise up to requirements."

The Virginian was now looking over the letter musingly, and with
awakened attention.

"'Your very sincere spinster,'" he read aloud slowly.

"I guess that means she's forty," said Taylor.

"I reckon she is about twenty," said the Virginian. And again he fell to
musing over the paper that he held.

"Her handwriting ain't like any I've saw," pursued Mr. Taylor. "But Bear
Creek would not object to that, provided she knows 'rithmetic and