“Don’t let her come till I get back. Tell her the hotel isn’t fit to receive guests yet—it never is for that matter—but anything to give me time to get here.”
He worked with indomitable courage for two weeks, visiting the principal towns in the state, and everywhere arousing intense enthusiasm. There was something contagious in his spirit. The young fellows were charmed by his eager intense way of looking at things, they caught the infection and he made hundreds of staunch friends.
“You’re just in time!” cried his mother greeting him with radiant face on his return. “She is coming tomorrow. I’ve a beautiful letter from her. I think one of the sweetest letters a girl ever wrote.”
“Let me see it!”
“No.”
“Why, Mother, I thought you were all on my side!”
“But I’m not. I’m a woman, and you can’t see some things she says.”
“Then it’s something awfully nice about me.”
“Maybe the opposite.”
“Then you’d resent it for me.”