“I jest thought of somethin',” exclaimed Captain Jerry, going through one pocket after the other.
“Well, I wish you'd have your thinkin' fits in the barn or somewheres else next time. I put this shirt on clean this mornin' and now look at it!”
His friend was too busy to pay any attention to this advice. The pocket search apparently being unsatisfactory, he rose from the table and hurriedly made a round of the room, looking on the mantelpiece and under chairs.
“I had it when I come in,” he soliloquized. “I know I did, 'cause I was wearin' it when I went out to see to the hens. I don't see where—”
“If it's your hat you're looking for,” observed Josiah, “I saw Mrs. Snow hang it up on the nail behind the door. There it is now.”
The reply to this was merely a grunt, which may, or may not have expressed approval. At any rate, the hat was apparently the object of his search, for he took it from the nail, looked inside, and with a sigh of relief took out a crumpled envelope.
“I knew I put it somewheres,” he said. “It's a letter for you, Elsie. Josiah, here, he brought it down from the post-office when he come from school this afternoon. I meant to give it to you afore.”
Captain Eri, who sat next to the young lady, noticed that the envelope was addressed in an irregular, sprawling hand to “Miss Elizabeth Preston, Orham, Mass.” Elsie looked it over in the absent way in which so many of us examine the outside of a letter which comes unexpectedly.
“I wonder who it is from,” she said.
She did not open it at once, but, tucking it into her waist, announced that she must run upstairs, in order that Mrs. Snow might come down to supper. The housekeeper did come down a few minutes later, and, as she was interested to know more about Luther Davis and his sister, the talk became animated and general.