Letty and the Twins

by Helen Sherman Griffith

Huldah enjoyed having them in the kitchen. Letty soon proved to be more of a helper than Jane herself, and was so genuinely interested in the art of cooking that Huldah good-naturedly offered to give her a few practical lessons.

It was while these cooking lessons were going on that Jane generally wrote her letters to her mother. It was a positive rule that the twins were to write either to their father or mother at least once a week. It may sound hard to say that this had to be made a rule but if you, my dears, are like most children, you will understand how difficult it is to find time to write letters even to those you love best in the world. But Jane rather liked it when she got started—if there was some one at hand to help with the spelling and the letters need not be long. Before sailing on the big steamer, Mrs. Baker, Jr., had given each of her children a little writing-case containing paper, envelopes, a box for pens and pencils, a tiny compartment for stamps and an ink-bottle, all complete. It was the first time Jane had ever been allowed to write with ink, and that added to the importance of her weekly letter-writing.

So while Huldah and Letty talked busily over recipes—“three cups of sifted flour; the whites of four eggs beaten stiff; two even teaspoonfuls of baking-powder” and other mysteries, Jane toiled away over her foreign correspondence. Jane loved her mother dearly and missed her—at times—more than any one guessed. As it was her joy when they were all at home to pour out into mother’s sympathetic ears all the little details of each day’s happiness, so now she told, in shorter form but with as faithful accuracy, the events of Sunnycrest. Mrs. Hartwell-Jones’s accident, the finding of her by the twins and her coming to Sunnycrest, had all been told in a previous letter. Now there was the account of the circus and the finding of Letty to relate, and when the crooked, blotty little letter reached Mrs. Christopher Baker, Jr., in Berlin, I am sure she was touched by the story of the orphaned circus girl who had been given a home by a kind, generous woman. And, mother-like, her heart must have glowed with pride at the thought that her little girl’s sympathy and love for a fellow creature had spoken the word which brought Letty a reward for her act of heroism long ago.

Letty was supremely happy. She was hardly old enough to realize all that she had been saved from, but the joy of being well fed and cared for filled her cup of happiness to overflowing. This change in her circumstances did not make the child selfish and lazy, as it might have affected some natures, easily spoiled by comfort; but more eager and willing to serve those who had been so kind to her. Mrs. Hartwell-Jones and grandmother agreed that there was no fear of being disappointed in Letty’s disposition, and the “lady who wrote books” found Mrs. Baker’s prophecy already coming true. She was growing fond of Letty.

UNDER A LARGE TREE IN THE GARDEN

“I find myself looking forward quite eagerly to my return to the city in the autumn,” she said to grandmother. “Letty will need some clothes before she goes to school, of course, and it will be such a pleasure to buy them. It has been so long since I have had any one to buy clothes for,” she added, the tears coming to her eyes. “I dare confess now, Mrs. Baker, how much I have envied you Janey and Kit this summer.”

“They are dear children,” agreed grandmother with a sigh, “but they are growing up so fast! Until this year they were always ‘the children.’ Now Jane is a girl and Kit a boy.” Grandmother paused a moment as if she wished to say something more, but she was afraid of boring her visitor by discussing the children too much and changed the subject.

It happened that the afternoon of the day before that set for the return of Letty and Mrs. Hartwell-Jones to the village was very hot, and all the grown-ups had retired to their own rooms to lie down. The children were told to stay quietly in the shade until the sun was lower, and Letty agreed to tell them stories. So they settled themselves under a large tree in the garden close to the house and, as it happened, just underneath Mrs. Hartwell-Jones’s window.

Letty began with “Jack the Giant Killer,” which she had read in one of Jane’s old books, but found that she was listened to with only polite interest.