MARIAN'S LETTER HOME

Marian's letters to her Uncle George were written on Sunday afternoons. She wrote pages and pages about Miss Smith and the country school and begged him not to come for her in August.

"I haven't done anything better than any one else in school yet," she wrote, "but I am learning all kinds of things and having the best time ever was. I want to go to the country school until I graduate. I'll be ready for college before you know it if you will only let me stay.

"I am good all the time because Mrs. Golding says so and Miss Ruth and Miss Kate take me almost everywhere they go—when they drive to town, circuses and things and I have lovely times every day.

"I would tell you who I play with only you would forget the names of so many children. When I can't find any one else I go to the mill to see the miller's boy. That isn't much fun because the miller's boy is half foolish. His clothes are always covered with flour and he looks like a little old miller himself. He jumps out at you when you don't know where he is and says 'Boo!' and scares you almost out of your wits, and that makes his father laugh. I tried to teach him to read but I didn't have good luck. He read 'I see the cat' out of almanacs and everything.

"The old miser died last night, Uncle George, and I saw him in the afternoon. Only think of it, I saw a man that died. After dinner I went to see the miller's boy and he wasn't there. His father said he was wandering along the river bank somewhere, so I stayed and talked to the miller. Pretty soon the boy came back making crazy motions with his arms and telling his father the old miser wanted to see him quick.

"I went outside and watched the big wheel of the mill when the boy and his father went away, but it wasn't any time before the boy came back and said the old miser wanted to see me. Of course I went as fast as I could go, and when I got to the hut, the miller asked me if I could say any Bible verses, and if I could to say them quick because the old miser wanted somebody to read the Bible quick—quick. I thought it was queer, Uncle George, but I was glad I had learned so much out of the Bible.

"The old miser was all in rags and I guess he didn't feel well then, because he was lying down on a queer old couch and he didn't stir, but I tell you he watched me. I didn't want to go in the hut, so I stood in the doorway where I could feel the sunshine all around me. Some way I thought that wasn't any time to ask questions, so I began the Twenty-third Psalm right straight off. When I got to the end of that I was going to say the first fourteen verses of John, but the old miser raised one hand and said, 'Again—again,' but before I got any further than 'The valley of the shadow,' he went to sleep looking at me and I never saw his face so happy. It smoothed all out and looked different. Poor old miser, the boys used to plague him. The miller motioned to his boy and me to go away. I guess he was afraid Jakey would wake the old miser. Of course I knew enough to keep still when a tired looking old man dropped to sleep.

"I don't know just when the old miser died, Uncle George, nobody talks about it where I can hear a word. Mrs. Golding says when I grow up I will be glad that I could repeat the Twenty-third Psalm to a poor old man who hadn't any friends. She says it isn't true that he was a miser, he was just an unfortunate old man. I wonder if he was anybody's grandfather? You never can tell.

"I am well acquainted with all the folks in the village, Uncle George, and lots of times I go calling. There are some old folks here who never step outside of their houses and they are glad to have callers. One old blind woman knits all the time. She likes to be read to, real well. And there is one woman, the shoemaker's wife, that has six children that bother her so when she tries to work; she says it does her good to see me coming.

"Only think, Uncle George, how lonesome I will be when I get home where I am not acquainted. The only sad thing that has happened here all summer is that the miser died, and of course you know that might be worse.

"I would like to be with Miss Smith more than I am but she studies almost all the time. I don't see what for because she knows everything, even about the stars. She likes me a great deal but I guess nobody knows it. You mustn't have favorites when you are a school-teacher, she told me so.

"You don't know how hard it is, Uncle George, to do something better than anybody else. You might think it would be easy, but somebody always gets ahead of you in everything, you can't even keep your desk the cleanest. Some girls never bring in anything from the woods, so of course they can keep dusted.

"I'm afraid you'll be disappointed in

"Your loving niece,
"Marian Lee."