AN INVITATION

The envelope was postmarked Everdoze which, with its one thousand two hundred and fifty-seven inhabitants, was the cosmopolitan center of Long Valley which ran (if anything in that neighborhood could be said to run) from Baxter City down below the vicinity of the bridge on the highway.

That is, Long Valley bordered the highway on its western side for a distance of about ten miles. The valley was, roughly speaking, a couple of miles wide, very deep in places, and thickly wooded. It was altogether a very sequestered and romantic region. Through it, paralleling the highway, was a road, consisting mostly of two wagon ruts with a strip of grass and weeds between them. To traverse Long Valley one turned into this road where it left the highway at Baxters, and in the course of time the wayfarer would emerge out of this dim tract into the light of day where the unfrequented road came into the highway again below the bridge.

About midway of this lonely road was Everdoze, and in a pleasant old-fashioned white house in Everdoze lived Ebenezer Quig who once upon a time had married Pee-wee’s Aunt Jamsiah. Pee-wee remembered his Aunt Jamsiah when she had come to make a visit in Bridgeboro and, though he had never seen her since, he had always borne her tenderly in mind because as a little (a very little) boy her name had always reminded him of jam. The letter, as has been said, bore the postmark of Everdoze and had been stamped by the very hand of Simeon Drowser, the local postmaster.

This is what the letter said:

Dear Walter:

Your uncle has been pestering me to write to you but Pepsy has been using the pen for her school exercise and I couldn’t get hold of it till to-day when she went away with Wiggle, perch fishing. Licorice Stick says they’re running in the brook most wonderful but you can’t believe half what he says. Seems as if the perch know when school closes, leastways that’s what your uncle says.

Pee-wee reread these enchanting words. Pepsy! Wiggle! Perch fishing! Licorice Stick! And school closing! And perch that knew about it. That was the sort of perch for Pee-wee. He read on:

I told your uncle I reckoned you wouldn’t care to come here being you live in such a lively place but he said this summer you would like to come for there will be plenty for you to do because there is going to be a spelling match in the town hall and an Uncle Tom’s Cabin show in August.

You can have plenty of milk and fresh eggs and Miss Arabella Bellison who has the school is staying this summer and she will let you in the school-house where there is a library of more than forty books but some of the pages are gone Pepsy says. She says to tell you she will show you where she cut her initials but I tell her not to put such ideas in your head and she knows how to climb in even if the door is locked, such goings on as she and Wiggle have, they will be the death of me.

Well, Walter, you will be welcome if you can come and spend the summer with us. I suppose you’re a great big boy by now; your mother was always tall for her age. There are boys here who would like to be scout boys and your uncle says you can teach them. We will do all we can so that you have a pleasant summer if you come and tell your mother we will be real glad to see you and will take good care of you.

I can’t write more now because I am putting up preserves, one hundred jars already. The apples will be rotting on the trees, it’s a shame. You will think we are very old-fashioned, I’m afraid.

Pee-wee paused and smacked his lips and nearly fell backward off the limb. One hundred jars of preserves and more coming! Apples rotting on the trees! All that remained to complete his happiness was a bush laden with ice cream cones growing wild. He read the concluding sentences:

Your uncle would be glad to go and bring you in the buckboard but it would take very long and he is busy haying so if you don’t mind the bad road it would be better for your father to send you in the automobile. Be sure to turn off the highway to the right just above Baxters. The road goes through the woods.

Steadying himself with one hand, Pee-wee took the letter between his teeth as if he were about to eat it. Then he cautiously let himself down so that he hung by his knees, then clutched the limb with his hands, hung for a moment with his legs dangling, and let go. In one sense he was upon earth but in another sense he was walking on air....