“Your affectionate father,
“Josiah A. Jones.”
When Ben Mayberry had explained how much could be saved by crossing out the superfluous words in this message, while its main points would be left, the farmer’s anger turned to pleasure. He took his pen, nodded several times, and turned smilingly to the desk, where he stood for fully a quarter of an hour, groaning, writing, and crossing out words. He labored as hard as before, and finally held the paper off at arm’s length and contemplated it admiringly through his silver spectacles.
“Yes; that’ll do,” he said, nodding his head several times in a pleased way; “that reads just the same—little abrupt, maybe, but they’ll git the hang of it, and it’ll please Sally Jane, who is a good darter. Here, young man, jist figger onto that, will you, and let me know how much the expense is.”
Ben took the paper, and under the labored manipulation of the old farmer, he found it was changed in this amazing fashion:
“I take my hand—Damietta. Jim, your brother—the baby is dead—I expect to eat Cousin Maria, and sleep in the river to-morrow afternoon—with the roan—if she ain’t too buggy. Your affectionate father,
“Josiah A. Jones.”
It was hard for Ben to suppress his laughter, but the farmer was looking straight at him, and the boy would not hurt his feelings. He surveyed the message a minute, and then said:
“Perhaps I can help you a little on this.”
“You can try if you want to,” grunted the old man; “but I don’t think you can improve much on that.”