Sure enough, 'twas the depot wagon with the mail. I took the bags from the driver and went back to help Mary sort. I'd taken to helpin' her a good deal lately—more since Jacobs left than ever afore. She said there wa'n't any need of it, but I didn't agree with her. Of course I realized that I was an old fool—but, somehow or other, I felt more and more contented with life when I was alongside of Mary. She and I understood each other and I'd come to depend upon her same as a man might on his sister—or his—well, or anybody, you understand, that he thought a good deal of and knew was square and—and so on. And she seemed to feel the same way about me.
We sorted the mail together, puttin' it in the different boxes and such. And almost the fust thing I run across was that registered letter addressed to "Ichabod Hamilton, Jr." 'Twas a long envelope and up in one corner of it was printed the name of a Boston broker's firm. I laid it out by itself and went on sortin'.
When the sortin' and distributin' was over and the crowd had gone, I called to Sim Kelley. We didn't have Rural Free Delivery then and Sim carried the West End mail box; that is, a lot of the folks up that way chipped in and paid him so much for deliverin' their mail to 'em.
"Sim," says I, "there's a registered letter here for young Ike Hamilton. If I give it to you will you be careful and see that he signs the receipt and the like of that?"
He was outside the partition and he come to the little window and took the letter from me. He acted mighty interested.
"Gosh!" says he, grinnin', "I wouldn't wonder if this was.... Humph! Oh, I'll be careful of it! don't you worry about that."
Just then Mary called to me. I went over to where she was settin' at her desk.
"Cap'n Zeb," she whispered, "I wouldn't send that letter by Sim. It is important, or it would not be registered, and Sim is so irresponsible. If anything should happen it would give Mr. Hamilton and the rest such a chance. And they have accused us of bein' careless already."
They had, that was a fact. One or two letters had gone astray durin' the past six months and the loss of 'em was described, with trimmin's, in the West End charges and petition. And Sim was a lunkhead. I thought it over a jiffy and then I called to Kelley once more. He was just comin' to the hooks by the door outside the mail-box racks where Mary and I and the store clerk—the one we'd hired in place of 'Dolph—hung our overcoats and hats. Sim had hung his coat there that mornin'.
"Sim," I said, "let me see that registered letter of Ike Hamilton's again, will you?" He took it out of his pocket and passed it to me.