It would have been a dreadful thing if Kenneth or Rose had once forgotten to send the papers. But they never did, though they could not guess how much depended upon their remembering that simple little promise which they had made.
No, Kenneth and Rose could not possibly know what the sharing of that single one of their pleasures meant to the little Prouts, and to all the other island children besides,—for in the end the whole island saw the magazines. They were passed on from family to family all that winter, and were literally worn to rags by the thumbing of many little fingers, and big ones, too.
The Prouts were learning a great deal about many things, nowadays. It was almost as good as going to school. All that winter they lived in a new world of constant change. The little cottage was no longer dreary or lonely. Their stupid tasks were no longer tiresome, for they had the beloved magazines to read when all was done. They had the children of those stories for their companions and friends, and they began to understand, ever so dimly, that all the children of the world are little brothers and sisters to one another.
CHAPTER XIV
TOMMY’S LETTER
ONE day they were talking about it, all together.
“God is our Father, as the preacher said,” declared Mary. “I read it to-day in the magazine, don’t you remember?”
“Yes,” agreed Tommy, “it must be He who sends the papers to us, for nobody else knows about us. But He knows everything,—the preacher said so.”
“I wish we could thank Him,” said little Polly. “He has been so good not to forget us.”
“I am going to write to Him,” said Tommy suddenly; “there is a Letter-Box in the paper, and boys and girls write to it every week. I am going to write and tell the Lord how we thank Him.”
And forthwith Tommy sat down and wrote to the magazine a letter something like those which he read every week in the Letter-Box,—yet different. An island letter would have to be different. This is what Tommy wrote: