"She is better now and says to tell you not to worry, but I warn you she may get down sick again any time, as old as what she is. And I think you have got good cause to worry, though I told her I'd tell you not to. If it hadn't been for the neighbours doing for her this last couple weeks, she'd have died.
"Yours truly,
"MAYBELLE RAUCH.
"P.S. She says she sends her love to all and that you have got no need to worry."
But Daniel and his sisters did seem to think they had "need to worry" very much, at the startling revelations of this letter, not the revelations as to their step-mother's sufferings and needs, but as to the neighbourhood publicity given to their neglect of her.
"To think she'd go and have that busybody teacher and all her other neighbours in and complain to 'em all like this, so's they write to us yet and ask for help for her! Well, this beats all! She never went this far before!" scolded Jennie.
"Yes, I don't see why she couldn't leave us know herself if she's got any complaints, and not put it out to the whole township like this!" Sadie worried.
"It certainly will make talk out there!" Daniel frowned.
"Enough to get into the newspapers if she doesn't watch out!"
"But how," Margaret ventured a question, "could she let you know except in the way she's taking, since she can't write herself? And how could she help having the neighbours in if she was ill and helpless and alone?"
"She could anyhow have sent us a postal card to say she was sick and wanted one of us to come out," said Jennie.