Peletiah, seeing her so absorbed, waited patiently till the second letter
was called for. He never for an instant thought of sliding off; so he
pulled it out of its envelope, and got ready.
At last Grandma pulled herself out of the charms of Cousin Mirandy's
receet, and set her spectacles straight.
"Who writ that one?" she asked.
"Joel," said Peletiah, finding it quite to his liking to read this one, for
Joel never wasted any time in preliminaries, but came to the point at once,
in big, sprawly letters.
"'Dear Misses Henderson.'" Somebody must have corrected him then, for he
scratched out the "Misses," and wrote on top "Mrs." "'You tell Grandma
Bascom, please, that it's just prime here, but I like her peppermints, too,
and I won't chase her old hens when I come back. Joel.'"
When Grandma really got this letter by heart, she laughed and said it had
done her good, and she wished Joel was there this minute, in which Peletiah
hardly concurred, being unable to satisfy Joel's athletic demands. And then
she looked over at the little mahogany stand, and the tears rolled down her
withered old cheeks.
"I'd give anythin' to see him comin' in at that door, Peletiah," she said,
"an' he may chase th' hens all he wants to when he comes back"; for Grandma
always cherished the conviction that the "Five Little Peppers" were to make
life merry again in their "little brown house," and she went on so long in
this way that Peletiah, who had glanced up at the clock many times, said at
last, in a stolid way, "There's another letter.
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