he letter she read it six times, over and over
till she knew it by heart. It wasn't the first such letter she had
ever had. When Johnny went off to Alaska or somewhere away off,
because his father took the twenty-five dollars that the
nineteen-year-old boy had saved so prayerfully for a bicycle, Johnny
had left just such a letter. When Jimmy went away he left a letter
that sounded very much like it on the top of his mother's sewing
machine.

It wasn't a bicycle with Jimmy. It was chickens. Jimmy was wild over
chickens. He was a great favorite with Frank Burton. He helped Frank
about the coops and was so handy that Frank paid him regular wages and
gave him several settings of eggs. And in no time the boy had a
thriving little chicken business that might have grown into bigger
things. But Sears sold the whole thing out one day when he wanted
money worse than usual. And Jimmy, white to the very roots of his
reddish-brown hair, cursed his father and left home. He wandered
about, the Lord knows where, but eventually joined the army. He wrote
home once to tell his mother what he had done and to say that he
intended to save all his pay for the three years and start a chicken
farm with it somewhere.

And now gentle, little, eighteen-year-old Alice was gone too.

Mrs. Sears sat down and cried in that patient, helpless, miserable way
of hers. She didn't know just what she was crying for, herself or the
children. Life was a hopeless, unmanageable tangle that seemed to give
her nothing and take her all. So Mrs. Sears sat and cried. It was a
habit she had.

Fanny Foster came along just then. She had run over to see if she
couldn't borrow a cake of yeast. She was going to town in an hour, she
said, but she wanted to set her bread before she went and she'd bring
yeast back with her and--

"Why, for pity's sake alive, Mrs. Sears, what's the matter?"

That was just Fanny's luck or perhaps her misfortune, her happening on
events first-hand that way. She read the letter of course, sympathized
with Mrs. Sears, patted her check and told her not to worry, that
everything would be all right and to set right still, that she'd be
right back to do the dishes and stay with her.

And Fanny hurried to town, talking all the way. She came back in
record time but by the time she had her hands in Mrs. Sears' dishpan
Green Valley was already buzzing with astonishment. Some were shaking
their heads in utter unbelief, some we