The Captain picked up the testament and opened it at the fly-leaf and read, written in a neat womanly hand, “Christopher Silburn, from Mother. ‘The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.’”
“Now, my boy,” the Captain continued, “I see you have a letter there. Letters always tell their own story. If you want to tell me more about yourself, you can read that letter to me. But you need not do it unless you choose.”
“I am quite willing to read it, sir,” Kit replied, taking up the letter. “It is from my sister, with a few lines added by my mother.”
He took it from the envelope and stepped up closer to the light. The body of the letter was in a scrawly, girlish hand, and the postscript was written evidently by the same hand that wrote the inscription in the testament.
My dear Kit [he read]: We are so worried about you for fear something will happen to you in that big city. Mamma says it is more than fifty times as big as Bridgeport, and I am always a little afraid when I go there. I cried half the night last night, and I know Mamma was crying for you in the evening, though she didn’t think that I saw her. Dear old Turk was so quiet all day, I know he missed you, too.
I do hope you will find some situation you like, and get a good start. But if you don’t find one, we want you to come home, Kit; Mamma says so.
I bought stamps with one of my dollars to-day and send them to you in this, for fear you may run out of money. If you don’t get anything to do, send me a postal card, and I will send you the other one too, so you can come home in the boat. I do wish you were here this evening.
Your loving sister,
Genevieve.
Then he read the postscript:—
My darling Boy: Sister has written for me, as my eyes ache in the evening. We hope to hear from you by to-morrow. Be sure we both miss you very much. God bless you, my boy, and take care of you. Remember what I told you before you started.
Mother.
“And you have spent your sister’s stamps, I suppose?” the Captain asked, when Kit, having finished, refolded the letter.
“No, sir, I was robbed of them,” he replied. “I took them into a little shop in one of the avenues to have them changed into money, and the man put them in the drawer, but would not pay me for them. He accused me of stealing them. ‘You’re not the first office boy has stolen his boss’s stamps and come here to sell them,’ he said. ‘Go and bring your boss, till I give him back his stamps.’”
“And being a country boy, you did not think of taking the address of the shop, I suppose?” the Captain asked.