MOUNT HUNGER, MILL SETTLEMENT, BARTON'S
RIVER, VERMONT, May 19, 1896.
DEAREST PAPA,--Good-morning! I am answering your long letter a little sooner than I expected to, because I want you to do something for me in a business way; that's the way March says it must be.
I don't know how to begin to tell you, but I 've joined the N.B.B.O.O. Society and one of the by-laws is that we must help others all we can and just as much as we can. I wish you'd been at the initiashun. (I don't know about that spelling, and I 'm in a hurry, or I 'd ask.) I had the hand of fellowship from a supposed corpse's hand first, and then I was branded on the arm. And afterwards they all took me in, and now we 're raising four hundred chickens to help others; I 'll tell you all about it when you come. Chi, that's the hired man, but he is really our friend, took me sitting-hen hunting day before yesterday, for I am to own some myself; and we drove all over the hills to the farmhouses and found and bought twelve, or rather Chi did, for I had to borrow the money of him, as I felt so bad when I kissed you good-bye that I forgot to tell you my quarterly allowance was all gone, and I know you won't like my borrowing of Chi, for you have said so many times never to owe anybody and I've always tried to pay for everything except when I had to borrow of Gabrielle, or Mrs. Scott, when I forgot my purse.
But truly the hens were in such an awful hurry to sit, that it did seem too bad to keep them waiting even three days till I could get some money from you; and then, too, we 've all of us, March and Rose and Budd and Cherry and me, bet on which hen would get the first chicken, and that chicken is going to be a prize chicken and especially fatted, and of course, if I waited for the money to come from you, I could n't stand a chance of coming out ahead in our four hundred chicken race, so I borrowed of Chi. The hens came to just $4 and eighty cents. I'll pay you back when I earn it, and don't you think it would have been a pity to lose the chance for the prize chicken just for that borrow?
Please send the money by return mail. I 've other letters to write, so please excuse my not paragraphing and so little punctuation, but I 've so much to do and this must go at once.
Your loving and devoted daughter,
HAZEL CLYDE.
P.S. The hens are sitting around everywhere. Give my love to Wilkins. H.C.
The Doctor shouted; then he stepped to the dining-room door and called, "Wifie, come here and bring that letter."