ent you as you asked me. Most of them are just what
you wanted--school books--but on my own hook I added one or two not
strictly for study--like plums in a dry bread pudding. And, of course,
there is something else in the box and _I_ guess that _you_ can guess
what it is.

This, little Smiles, is the longest letter I ever wrote to anybody, I
think. Don't you feel proud? It must end now, however; but not before I
ask you to give my best regards to your kind granddaddy.

Don't let the cold winter that is coming, chill your warm affection for

Your sincere friend,
Donald MacDonald.

P.S. I told Mike what you wrote to him, and he wigwagged a message of
love back to you with his tail.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

II

Big Jerry's Cabin
in Webb's Gap, Virginia.
Sep't. 20, 1912.

Dear Doctor Mac:

Oh, dear doctor, can you ever forgive me for waiting two whole days
before I wrote you back to thank you with all my heart for the many
wonderful things which came in that box? It was like a fairy's treasure
chest. And most of all I am obliged for that letter you wrote me. It was
the first letter I ever got from any one and I shall keep it as long as
I live. I think, of all the things I got, I like that the best. Those
others you could _buy_, but you had to _make_ that yourself,
and it seemed like I could almost hear you talking the words in your
strong voice, like the sound of the falls in the Swift River.

When I looked inside that box I could not make up my mind what I liked
best. The many books kind of scared me when I opened them and remembered
I had got to know all that much; but the book of beautiful poetry I just
love. I have read all of the poetrys and know some of them to speak
already.

Then there is that nurse's dress. O how I love it, and how I wish for
you to see me in it. I plans to put it on a little while everyday and
pretend that I am a real nurse _like I am going to be_. I done it
yesterday, and somehow when I shet my eyes and run my hands over its
crackely stiff whiteness, it seemed to me that the room was full of
sweet little babies for me to take keer of.

And now, doctor, I must tell you t