He put his arm about her and hugged Janice tight against his side. "Don't lose hope so easily. And see here! Here is something new I forgot to tell you."
"What is it, Daddy?" she asked, as he began to search an inner pocket of his coat.
"A letter. From your Aunt Almira. Just listen to it."
"Oh, Daddy! From Aunt Almira in—in Poketown?"
"Yes. My half-brother's wife—and a good soul she is."
He drew the letter from its envelope and unfolded it. He began to read the epistle with a smile wreathing his lips, for Aunt Almira's communication was unintentionally funny:
"'Dear Brocky:
"'Jase won't never get around to writing you, far as I see, so I had better do so before you get the suspicion that we are all dead. We might as well be and buried, too, here in Poketown—for it is right next door to a cemetery for deadness, I do believe. You know what it was when you was lucky enough to get out of it twenty years ago. Well, it is worse now. There has been nothing new in Poketown since you went away, excepting the town pump's been painted once.
"That time you came to see us with Laura, when Janice was a little girl—"
"Why, Daddy!" interrupted Janice, her eyes round with wonder, "I don't remember Poketown at all."