ed with such genuine delight beaming from his nice, good,
friendly, gray eyes that I beamed up myself a bit out of pure
responsiveness.

"I am so glad to see you, Mr. Haley. Hasn't it been a lovely day?" I
answered, as I offered him the large rocker Sallie had vacated.

"It has, indeed, and I don't know when I have been as deeply happy. This
hour with you will be the very climax of the day's perfections, I feel
sure."

I smiled.

To follow you, Jane, I "let a man look freely into my heart and thus
encouraged he opened his to mine" and behold, I found Sallie and the
twins and Henrietta all squatting in the Dominie's cardiac regions, just
as comfortably as they do it at Widegables.

"My sympathies have become so enlisted in the struggle which Mrs.
Carruthers is having to curb the eccentricities of her oldest daughter
that I feel I must lay definite plans to help her. It is very difficult
for a young and naturally yielding woman like Mrs. Carruthers to
discipline alone even so young a child as Henrietta. I know you will
help me all you can to help her. Believe me, my dear friend, even in the
short time you have been in Glendale you have become a tower of strength
to me. I feel that I can take my most difficult and sacred perplexities
to you."

Now, what do you think of that, Jane? Be sure and rub this situation in
on all the waiting Five disciples. I defy any of them to do so well in
less than three months. This getting on a plane of common citizenship
with a fellow-man is easy. That is, with some men.

Still while you are getting on the plane somebody else gets the man.
What about that? I didn't want Mr. Haley, but what if I had?

"Yes, Henrietta is a handful, Mr. Haley," I answered with enthusiasm,
for even the mention of Henrietta enlivens me and somehow Mr. Haley's
getting in the game of "curbing" her stirred up my risibles. "But--but
Sallie already has a good many people to help her with the children. I
have been trying to--to influence Henrietta--and she does not swear
except on the most exasperating occasions now."

"The dear little child created a slight consternation in her Sunday
School class last week when they were being taught the great dramatic
story of Jonah's three days' incarceration in the whale. To quote her
exactly, so that you may see how it must have affected the other
children, she said: 'I swallowed a live fly onct myself and I'm not damn
fool enough to believe that whale kept Jonah down