ar-sighted. Jimmy Reed was young and curious. He had even
yielded to temptation once in removing a stamp on a letter from
Annette Fenton to a strange suitor. Not that he wanted to delay the
letter. He only wanted to know if she put tender messages under the
stamp when she wrote to other people.

During the two years Sandy remained at the university, Jimmy handed
his letters out of the post-office window to the judge once a week,
following them half-way with his body to pick up the verbal crumbs of
interest the judge might let fall while perusing them. The supremacy
which Sandy had established in the base-ball days had lent him a
permanent halo in the eyes of the younger boys of Clayton. "Letter
from Sandy this morning," Jimmy would announce, adding somewhat
anxiously, "Ain't he on the team yet?"

The judge was obliging and easy-going, and he frequently gratified
Jimmy's curiosity.

"No; he's studying pretty hard these days. He says he is through with
athletics."

"Does he like it up there?"

"Oh, yes, yes; I guess he likes it well enough," the judge would
answer tentatively; "but I am afraid he's working too hard."

"Looks like a pity to spoil such a good pitcher," said Jimmy,
thoughtfully. "I never saw him lose but one game, and that nearly
killed him."

"Disappointment goes hard with him," said the judge, and he sighed.

Jimmy's chronic interest developed into acute curiosity the second
winter--about the time the Nelsons returned to Clayton after a long
absence.

On Thanksgiving morning he found two letters bearing his hero's
handwriting. One was to Judge Hollis and one to Miss Ruth Nelson. The
next week there were also two, both of which went to Miss Nelson.
After that it became a regular occurrence.

Jimmy recognized two letters a week from one person to one person as a
danger-signal. His curiosity promptly rose to fever-heat. He even went
so far as to weigh the letters, and roughly to calculate the number of
pages in each. Once or twice he felt something hard inside, and upon
submitting the envelop to his nose, he distinguished the faint
fragrance of pressed flowers. It was perhaps a blessing in disguise
that the duty of sorting the outgoing mail did not fall to his lot.
One added bit of information would have resulted in spontaneous
combustion.

By and by letters came daily, their weight increasing until they
culminated, about Christmas-time, in a special-delivery letter which
bristled under the im