Who’s been giving you an inch, that you take so many “l’s”? Or is father putting an “L” to his house, or some great “LL. D.” been dining there, or what is the matter, that about every “l” in your letter comes double? I wouldn’t spell “painful” with two “l’s” if the pain was ever so bad. But I know. You are thinking about Billy and the good times we are having. Aunt Phebe says you might have come too, just as well as not; for her family is so big, three or four more don’t make a mite of difference.
We got here last night. Billy’s grandmother’s a brick. She took Billy right in her arms, and I do believe she cried for being glad, behind her spectacles. His sister is full as pretty as you. Billy brought her a round comb. Aunt Phebe’s little Tommy’s as fat as butter. He sat and sucked his thumb and stared, till Billy held out a whistle to him, and then he walked up and took it, as sober as a judge.
“And I’ve brought you something, Grandmother,” says Billy.
He went out and brought in a bandbox tied up. I wondered, coming in the cars, what he had got tied up in that bandbox. He out with his jack-knife, and cut the strings, and took out—have you guessed yet? Of course you haven’t,—took out a new cap like grandma’s. He stuck his fist in it, and turned it round and round, to let her see it.
“Now sit down,” says he, “and we’ll try it on.”
She wouldn’t, but he made her.
“Come here, Dorry,” says he, “and see which is the front side of this.”
When her old cap was pulled off, there was her gray hair all soft and crinkly. He got the cap part way on.
“You tip it down too much,” says I.
“We’ll turn it round,” says he.