Paradise, his presence fills
Our earth, each only as God wills
Can work.
—Robert Browning.
In large black letters the word Post Office stared down the Bensalem street from the end door of a small white house. A plump lady in gray pushed open the door; the bell over the door sharply announced her entrance; she stepped into the tiny room; straight before her a door was shut, at her right were rows of glass pigeonholes with numerals pasted upon them; no head was visible at the window the pigeonholes surrounded; while she stood ready to tap upon the closed door that led into the sitting-room, the sound of a horn clear and loud gave her a start and betrayed her into a quick exclamation: “Why, deary me. What next?”
“Come in here, come in here,” called a shaky voice from the other side of the closed door.
She pushed the door open, to be confronted by the figure of an old man lying in bed with a tin horn in his hand.
“Come right in, Miss Affy,” the old man said cheerfully; “I’ve got one of my dreadful rheumatic days and can’t twist myself out of bed; I’ve had my bed down here for a week now. I’ve got all the mail in bed with me. Sarah had to go out and milk and feed the chickens, so she brought the few letters and papers that were left over in here for me to take care of. Doctor says I’ll be about in a week or so, if he can keep the fever down. I never had rheumatic fever before. Nobody comes this time of day for letters. Nothing happens about five o’clock excepting feeding the chickens. Sarah milks earlier than most folks so as to tend the mail, when the stage gets in. She went out earlier than usual to-day because she forgot the little chickens at noon. She just put her head in to say she had taken a new brood off. Do sit down a minute. Didn’t Mr. Brush tell you I had rheumatic fever? Sarah must have told him when he came for his paper, night before last. She tells everybody. I blew the horn to call Sarah in, but I don’t believe she’ll come until she gets ready. The mail doesn’t mean anything to her excepting getting our pay regular. There’s all the letters on the foot of the bed; you can pick yours out. Sarah said you had a letter, and she guessed it was from your niece, Mrs. Mackenzie, or her little girl. Yes, that’s it. Mr. Brush’s paper is there, too.”
The plump lady in gray, with a long gray curl behind each ear, picked among the letters and papers at the foot of the untidy bed, and found a letter in a pretty hand addressed to Miss Affy S. Sparrow, and a newspaper bearing the printed label, Cephas Brush.