s were the only creatures that ever
waited for the mail in Hicksville.

In the peacefulness of the Hicksville solitude the train could be heard
rattling over the bridge and into the woods beyond, going straight about
its business as if Hicksville did not exist.

It was no wonder that Joshua Hicks was astonished, for things like this
did not happen in Hicksville every day. The last previous event had been
a circus but that was nothing compared to the large envelope. For the
address on this was as follows:

To a lady in Hicksville, North Carolina, who lives in a white
house with the end of the porch broken and with a dog that has a
collar. Maybe there's a window broken.

In the upper left hand corner was written:

If not delivered sometime or other return to W. Harris, scout,
Raven Patrol 1st Bridgeboro New Jersey troop, Boy Scouts of
America.

And at the lower right hand corner was the additional information:

P. S. There is a puddle outside the woodshed or a pail.

With such detailed information as this Uncle Sam, that world renowned
errand boy, could hardly do otherwise than deliver this formidable
document. And thus it was that W. Harris, scout, had stopped a great
train, which goes to show you what boy scouts can do.

Thinking no doubt that an envelope of such imposing dimensions
containing such explicit descriptive matter was entitled to the honor of
rural free delivery, the postmaster-general himself took off his
spectacles, put on a large straw hat and started up the road.

He came presently to a small white house some distance up a lane, where
a dog with a collar greeted him with a cordial wag of the tail.

That dog, in his humble abode, did not know that his fame had gone
abroad and that his personal distinction of a collar was known in the
sovereign commonwealth of New Jersey, not to mention the vast
cosmopolitan centre of Bridgeboro, county seat so-called, because of the
comfortable propensity of the people living there to spend their time
sitting down. Perhaps it might more appropriately have been called the
county couch, since the inhabitants were said to be forever in a kind of
doze.

But if Bridgeboro, New Jersey, dozed, Hicksville, North Carolina, had
the sleeping sickness. And it did not even walk in its sleep for not a
soul was to be seen about the little white house nor anywhere else.

There was no doubt, however, of its being the house in question. A
pillar