In this case the admiration with which the name was repeated might not have found so ringing an echo in Mrs. McGregor's voice. She had been to Liverpool. For all that, however, she maintained a dignified front and bore the letter upstairs, sinking with delight into the first chair that blocked her path when she arrived and calling to her children:
"I've a letter from your Uncle Frederick, Timmie. Think of that! It comes all the way from Liverpool with King George neat as a pin smiling out of the corner of it. Yes, you may take the envelope, Carl, but don't let the baby be fingering and tearing it. Show Martin the King's picture. He's old enough now to learn how he looks. Mercy on us! What a ream your Uncle Frederick has written. One would think it was a book! I never knew him to write such a long letter in all my life. I hope he isn't sick. Don't hang over my shoulder, Mary; it makes me nervous. And don't let Nell come climbing up into my lap while I'm reading. Go to Mary, like a good girl, darling; mother's reading a letter that came all the way from England."
Thus did Mrs. McGregor preface the perusal of the document she held in her hand. But when she had spread out the voluminous sheets and was preparing to read them she was again interrupted:
"Now, Timmie, don't you and Carl start quarreling the first thing about the stamp. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Who had the last one? Carl? Then this one goes to you and there must be no more bickering about it. If there is I shall keep it myself. One would think you boys were a pair of Kilkenny cats the way you squabble with each other! Now are you going to be quiet and listen to what Uncle Frederick has to say or are you not? Then don't let me hear another yip out of either of you."
Instantly the room was so still you could have heard a pin drop and to an accompaniment of crisply crackling paper Mrs. McGregor began:
Liverpool, January 29, 1924.
Dear Sister Nellie—,
Well, here I am in England with the Atlantic rolling between me and Baileyville. We had a splendid voyage with the sea as smooth as the top of your sewing-machine. (Ain't that like your Uncle Frederick to joke about the ocean! He's crossed it that number of times it's no more to him than the pond in the park. Well, I'm glad he had a smooth trip, anyway.)
At Liverpool, where we docked, we ran into our first trouble, for there was a longshoremen's strike on and not a soul could he found to unload our cargo or lend a hand in loading us up again. For three days we were tied plumb to the wharf with nothing to do but twirl our thumbs. So having business at Manchester I decided to go up there and stay with a Scotchman who was my first mate years ago. (Now wasn't that nice!) Old Barney turned the town inside out he was so glad to see me (I'll wager he was!) and among other things took me through some big cotton mills where a nephew of his was working. For the benefit of the children I'm going to write a bit about them. I could not but wish on top of what we all talked about that they might have been with me to see how wonderful the spinning machinery is. Were it actually alive it could not work with more brains. (Your Uncle Frederick always will have his joke!)
Indeed, the man who took us about told me that the self-acting mule of to-day, founded on the invention of Crompton, is a product of hundreds of minds and I can well believe it. It isn't the principle that is new, for apparently no one has ever improved on Crompton's idea; but since that time this machinist and that has added his bit to make the device more perfect. (Now ain't you glad you read about Crompton, Carl? This letter would have been Greek to you if you hadn't.) We saw mules as long as a hundred and twenty feet, and from nine to ten feet wide carrying some twelve or thirteen hundred spindles, and turning out about two yards of thread in a quarter of a minute. How is that? And all this clicking, humming, whirling machinery was operated by a man and a couple of boys. Carl, Tim and I could have run the thing had we known how.