dog, the mules and chickens and a family of mice and I are all living
peacefully together in the one room but we're awful healthy if a good
appetite is any kind of a sign. I can't write to Carrie because her
folks open all her letters and they'd nag her into marrying that old
knock-kneed, squint-eyed, fat-necked son-of-a-gun of an Andrew Langly,
if they thought she was having anything to do with a worthless heathen
cuss like me. And say, Grandma, throw in some of your flower seeds,
those right out of your own garden, you know, the tall ones along the
fence and the little ones with the blue eyes and the still white ones
that smell so sweet. You don't know how lonesome I get off here. I've
got that picture of you in the sunbonnet right where it's handy, but
how I wish I had a picture of you without the sunbonnet so's I could
see your face, and say, Grandma, since I've been alone out here I've
come to see the sense in praying now and then, and tell Freddy Williams
I'll knock the stuffin's out of him when I hit town which will be in
about two years at the latest. He knows what for. Is Hank Lolly still
talking his way into three square meals a day and drinks, and is all
the news still ground over at Uncle Tony's gossip factory and is Mert
Hagley as big a tightwad as ever and is it true that Billy Evans
married a red-headed girl from Bloomingdale and started a livery barn,
and has Green Valley got a minister yet that's suitable to you and
Uncle Roger Allan? I'll have to stop and run out to the mail box with
this. The nearest one is twenty-five miles away but that's near in
this country and now for pity's sake, Grandma, don't forget . . ."

She didn't forget a thing. The messages were all delivered, the seeds
sent off and every question fully answered. Grandma did more than
that. She had Nanny Ainslee take pictures of the various Green Valley
institutions while going full blast. How Tommy laughed at the familiar
faces in Uncle Tony's armchairs and at Hank Lolly leaning up against