"I get so few love letters," she remarked, "that I want a chance to enjoy them."
"Then as that's the case," said Ed, "it's us for the Bungle. Come on, boys," and he pretended offence, "Us is hurt."
"Now Ed, I said letters—not lovers," corrected Cora.
"The pen and ink!" demanded Ed. "I will to thee a letter indite," and he opened the small desk in the darkest corner of the room.
This was a signal for every boy to pretend to write a love letter to every girl. Jack could get nothing better than a feather from the Indian headpiece that hung on the wall. This he dipped in Belle's shoe dressing, and wrote a note on the back of Cora's best piece of sheet music. Walter sat on the floor poking his whittled stick into the dead embers in the fire-place, and managed to scratch something on a fan—it belonged to Bess. Paul did not much care for nonsense, but appropriately made Indian characters on the wooden bowl with his pen knife. The whole turned out more fun than was expected.
Walter proffered his love letter to Laurel, and she surprised them all by reading this:
"My Mountain Laurel:
Meet me when the buds come and we will wait for the blossoms.
Your Bending Bough."
The cue that Laurel furnished was taken up by the others and when
Jack offered his "note" to Hazel she read.