r year. But from the baggage
coach there came each evening a bag of mail, and this was the cause of
the gathering at the post office. While the postmaster and his assistant
were opening and distributing the mail behind the closed window in the
post office, the restless townspeople occupied themselves in social chat
discussing the local happenings of the day, or in reading the notices on
the bulletin board.

Everybody was at the post office at this hour. School children, happy at
the close of an irksome day of school, shouted boisterously at each
other in the street. Laboring men, with empty dinner pails in hand, sat
restfully on the curbstone just outside the post office door, and talked
of the happenings of the day. The village blacksmith wiped the honest
sweat from his brow, closed the shop door, and came down to the post
office, where he was met by his flaxen-haired girl of three summers. She
clasped her pink arms about the smith's grimy neck and told him Mama was
looking for a letter from Grandma, who had gone to California for her
health, and that she had come down to see how many kisses Grandma had
sent her. The town doctor, with a dignified air, leaned against the side
of the post office door and read the Chicago paper that a previous mail
had brought to him. The schoolmaster had finished grading some test
papers and had come down to the post office just in time to be the third
party to an interesting fist fight in which two sixth grade boys were
engaged with great zest, in the street. Two out-of-town strangers, who
were guests at the hotel just across the way, came over and, seating
themselves on a bench in front of the post office engaged in
conversation.

Finally the task behind the window was done. The mail was sorted and
placed alphabetically in the proper boxes. The postmaster flipped up
the window, and there was a mighty rush and a scramble--for who is not
eager to get a letter? Some received several letters and papers; some
only one letter; some only a paper; some only a catalogue. Some were
disappointed altogether, judging from facial expressions; some received
glad messages, some sad messages, some indifferent.

When the crowd was dispersed, the two strangers who had been seated on
the bench appeared at the window and called for their mail. The
postmaster handed to one of them a letter addressed, Evangelist Blank.
The address was written in almost an unreadable hand. The evangelist
opened the letter.