land they lived on, because no one had
taken the trouble to make them feel that they were a part of this Great
American Job.

As we went back to the house, a freckled-nosed neighbour's boy came in
at the gate.

"A letter for you, Mr. Clark," said he. "I brought it up with our mail."

"A letter!" exclaimed Mrs. Clark.

"A letter!" echoed at least three of the children in unison.

"Probably a dun from Brewster," said Mr. Clark discouragingly.

I felt a curious sensation about the heart, and an eagerness of interest
I have rarely experienced. I had no idea what a mere letter--a mere
unopened unread letter--would mean to a family like this.

"It has no stamp on it!" exclaimed the older girl.

Mrs. Clark turned it over wonderingly in her hands. Mr. Clark hastily
put on a pair of steel-bowed spectacles.

"Let me see it," he said, and when he also had inspected it minutely he
solemnly tore open the envelope and drew forth my letter.

'I assure you I never awaited the reading of any writing of mine with
such breathless interest. How would they take it? Would they catch the
meaning that I meant to convey? And would they suspect me of having
written it?

Mr. Clark sat on the porch and read the letter slowly through to the
end, turned the sheet over and examined it carefully, and then began
reading it again to himself, Mrs. Clark leaning over his shoulder.

"What does it mean?" asked Mr. Clark.

"It's too good to be true," said Mrs. Clark with a sigh.

I don't know how long the discussion might have continued--probably for
days or weeks--had not the older girl, now flushed of face and rather
pretty, looked at me and said breathlessly (she was as sharp as a
briar):

"You wrote it."

I stood the battery of all their eyes for a moment, smiling and rather
excited.

"Yes," I said earnestly, "I wrote it, and I mean every word of it."

I had anticipated some shock of suspicion and inquiry, but to my
surprise it was accepted as simply as a neighbourly good morning. I
suppose the mystery of it was eclipsed by my astonishing presence there
upon the scene with my tin whistle.

At any rate, it was a changed, eager, interested family which now
occupied the porch of that dilapidated farmhouse. And immediately we
fell into a lively discussion of crops and farming, and indeed the whole
farm question, in which I found both the man and his wife singularly
acute--sharpened upon the stone of hard experience.

Indeed, I fo