less you send for me to-morrow to bring me home I shall go
to a deep place I know in the river and drown. It is wicked to
drown, I suppose, but I wanted to see you, and there is no one
else. I am very tired, and Tommy is waiting for the letter. You
will excuse me, mamma, if I do it.

Your respectful and loving daughter,

Lena.

Tommy was still waiting faithfully when the letter was concluded,
and when Lena dropped it out she saw him pick it up and start up the
steep hillside. Without undressing she blew out the candle and curled
herself upon the mattress on the floor.

At 10:30 o'clock old man Ballinger came out of his house in his
stocking feet and leaned over the gate, smoking his pipe. He looked
down the big road, white in the moonshine, and rubbed one ankle with
the toe of his other foot. It was time for the Fredericksburg mail to
come pattering up the road.

Old man Ballinger had waited only a few minutes when he heard the
lively hoofbeats of Fritz's team of little black mules, and very soon
afterward his covered spring wagon stood in front of the gate. Fritz's
big spectacles flashed in the moonlight and his tremendous voice
shouted a greeting to the postmaster of Ballinger's. The mail-carrier
jumped out and took the bridles from the mules, for he always fed them
oats at Ballinger's.

While the mules were eating from their feed bags old man Ballinger
brought out the mail sack and threw it into the wagon.

Fritz Bergmann was a man of three sentiments--or to be more
accurate--four, the pair of mules deserving to be reckoned individually.
Those mules were the chief interest and joy of his existence. Next came
the Emperor of Germany and Lena Hildesmuller.

"Tell me," said Fritz, when he was ready to start, "contains the sack
a letter to Frau Hildesmuller from the little Lena at the quarries?
One came in the last mail to say that she is a little sick, already.
Her mamma is very anxious to hear again."

"Yes," said old man Ballinger, "thar's a letter for Mrs.
Helterskelter, or some sich name. Tommy Ryan brung it over when he
come. Her little gal workin' over thar, you say?"

"In the hotel," shouted Fritz, as he gathered up the lines; "eleven
years old and not bigger as a frankfurter. The close-fist of a Peter
Hildesmuller!--some day I shall with a big club pound that man's
dummkopf--all in and out the town. Perhaps in this letter Lena will
say that she is yet feeling better. So, her mamma