"Well--"
The postmistress, in response to Dave Fletcher's anxious inquiry, looked again at a package of letters she had been handling.
"Oh yes, here is something! I didn't see it the first time. Beg pardon."
"All right. I wasn't really expecting anything, but it is so long since I have had a letter that I was kind of hungry for one."
Dave took his letter from the postmistress and walked away.
"Postmarked Shipton!" said Dave, looking at the envelope. "Don't seem to know the address. Let's break that and see what it says."
He glanced down at the name with which the letter closed.
"James Tolman; what does he want?" wondered Dave. He then returned to the first line and began to read:--
"DEAR DAVID,--I have not forgotten that you were in my Sunday-school class when in Shipton, and I felt that I knew you well enough to ask you to take this into consideration, whether you wouldn't like to come and be my clerk. I am in the ship-chandlery business, and have two clerks. One of them is going away, and may leave me for good. I have promised to keep his place open for him three months. At the end of that time he may come back. Now, if I ask you to come for three months, I know--"
Dave crumpled the letter in his hand, thrust it into his pocket, and springing into his waggon, cried, "Get up there, Jimmy! Don't know that you and I will be travelling this road together much longer. Get up there!"