“The very thing!” exclaimed one.
“The last touch is the best!” cried another; while all united in declaring the letter to be “jist about clever.”
“I’ll pop it under his door late to-night!” cried Jem. “So soon as I’m sure he be asleep. Now, let’s write his to her.”
“You’d better do that,” said Lizzie. “The two writin’s mustn’t be the same, an’ she’d know my hand along o’ my makin’ out the milk bills.”
“Hold the match, then, somebody,” cried Jem. “Here, ’Ector, catch hold; an’ mind ye keep it studdy. Give me the pen, Liz.”
He took up his position at the flat stone, and was so long in squaring his elbows, arranging the pen in his clumsy fingers, and thrusting his tongue into his cheek—a necessary preliminary to rustic letter writing—that Hector announced that the match was burning him, before he had begun work in earnest.
“Hold hard a minute!” cried another man. “Best be thinkin’ out what you want to say afore we lights another. It comes terr’ble expensive on matches, an’ it’s enough to put anybody off to have to start to light one in the middle of a line.”
“True, true!” agreed the others.
Lizzie, flushed with her recent triumph, again took the lead—
“‘Dear Hannah—’”