seven-page illustrated letter from Miami arrives at the same time. I
should have known Jervis from the palm tree perfectly, even without the
label, as the tree has so much the more hair of the two. Also, I have a
polite bread-and-butter letter from my nice young man in Washington,
and a book from him, likewise a box of candy. The bag of peanuts for the
kiddies he has shipped by express. Did you ever know such assiduity?

Jimmie favors me with the news that he is coming to visit me as soon
as father can spare him from the factory. The poor boy does hate that
factory so! It isn't that he is lazy; he just simply isn't interested in
overalls. But father can't understand such a lack of taste. Having built
up the factory, he of course has developed a passion for overalls,
which should have been inherited by his eldest son. I find it awfully
convenient to have been born a daughter; I am not asked to like
overalls, but am left free to follow any morbid career I may choose,
such as this.

To return to my mail: There arrives an advertisement from a wholesale
grocer, saying that he has exceptionally economical brands of oatmeal,
rice, flour, prunes, and dried apples that he packs specially for
prisons and charitable institutions. Sounds nutritious, doesn't it?

I also have letters from a couple of farmers, each of whom would like
to have a strong, husky boy of fourteen who is not afraid of work, their
object being to give him a good home. These good homes appear with great
frequency just as the spring planting is coming on. When we investigated
one of them last week, the village minister, in answer to our usual
question, "Does he own any property?" replied in a very guarded manner,
"I think he must own a corkscrew."

You would hardly credit some of the homes that we have investigated. We
found a very prosperous country family the other day, who lived huddled
together in three rooms in order to keep the rest of their handsome
house clean. The fourteen-year girl they wished to adopt, by way of a
cheap servant, was to sleep in the same tiny room with their own three
children. Their kitchen-dining-parlor apartment was more cluttered up
and unaired than any city tenement I ever saw, and the thermometer at
eighty-four. One could scarcely say they were living there; they were
rather COOKING. You may be sure they got no girl from us!

I have made one invariable rule--every other is flexible. No child is
to be placed out unless the pro