“Can she read?” asked the girl.
“Oh, yes,” said Chap.
“And write, too, I s’pose?”
“Yes,” was the reply, “she can do all that.”
“I’d like something awfully much,” said Mary Brown, “and I don’t reckon it ’ud be real bothersome to anybody who knows how to write already. I wish, after you git home, you’d ask your sister to write me a small letter. I never got a letter in all my life. I can’t read, but father’d read it to me.”
“She’ll do it,” said Chap, warmly. “I know she will. But where shall she direct it? She can’t send a letter here.”
“Oh, there’s a post-office at Cooper’s store,” said the girl, “and when father goes thar, they tells him if there’s a letter thar for him.”
Phœnix now called to Chap that they were nearly ready to start.
“Good-by!” said Chap, holding out his hand. “You’ve been a real trump, and I’ll make Helen write you a letter. She’ll tell you just how we got home.”
Adam and the other boys now came up, and shook hands with Mary Brown. There had been some talk at breakfast of offering to pay her for the provisions she had furnished the night before, but now it had been determined not to do so for fear of offending her. She had evidently offered what she had out of pure good will.