Then they shouted again. Think of stopping to find out whether a man was a citizen before they put his fire out! Everybody in Friendship Village was telling that to each other for weeks, and splitting their sides over it.
Less than a couple of weeks afterward Jeffro got a letter from home, from his wife. Postmaster Silas Sykes handed it out to him when Jeffro come in the post-office store for some groceries, and when he started to pay for the groceries Jeffro says:
"How much on the letter?"
"Why, they's nothing due on that," says Silas, squinting at it over the sugar-barrel.
"But thes' is only old country stamp on here," said Jeffro. "It is not enough for all this way in America too?"
Silas waved his hand at him like the representative of the gover'ment he was. "Your Uncle Sam pays for all that," says he.
Jeffro looks at him a minute, then he says: "Uncle Sam—is that, then, a person? I see the pictures—"
"Sure, sure," says Silas, winking to Timothy Toplady that stood by. "Uncle Sam takes grand care of us, you bet."
"I am not yet a citizen," Jeffro insisted. "I have apply for my first papers—"
"Go 'long," says Silas, magnificent. "Do you s'pose Uncle Sam bothers himself about that? You belong to his family as soon as you strike shore."