“Then it isn’t a mouse and it isn’t a lamb,” said Mary Jane positively, “and that’s all I can think of now.”

“That’s a good thing,” said Grandmother, “for there’s the postman and I surely expect a letter from your mother to-day.”

One of the things that Mary Jane most loved to do was to run out front when the rural mail carrier came along in his little wagon and watch him put the mail in the box out in front of her grandfather’s house.  Usually they spied him way down the road just about the time they were through dinner and Mary Jane would run out and watch him.  The first time he saw her he handed the mail out to her and that disappointed her greatly.  She had wanted to see him put the mail in the box as Grandfather had told her he would.  So on the second day, Grandfather went out with her and explained to the carrier that little girls from the city liked mail that came in boxes better than mail that was just handed in city fashion.  And after that, the carrier smiled and nodded to her each time and then tucked the mail as carefully into the box as though he didn’t know she would take it out the first minute he was out of sight.

“I’ll go down with you,” said Grandfather, rising quickly from the table, “because I’m expecting a letter too.”

Sure enough!  There was a letter for Grandmother that looked very much as though it came from Mary Jane’s mother; and a letter for Grandfather that looked to be exactly the same letter!  There wasn’t a mite of difference so far as Mary Jane could see, except in the one Grandfather said was his, the first word was shorter.  And there was a letter for Mary Jane too, the first letter she ever received from her mother.

They all three sat down on the front steps to read.  First Mary Jane opened hers and Grandmother helped her read it.  “I’m going to learn to read myself,” declared Mary Jane, “’cause folks that get letters ought to know how to read them.”

“You’re right they should,” agreed Grandmother, “and I shouldn’t wonder a bit but what a certain little girl I know would go to school this fall.”

“And that little girl’s me?” asked Mary Jane.

“That little girl’s you,” said Grandmother.  “Now listen while I read my letter.”

So Mary Jane sat real still and heard Grandmother’s letter.

“Now then, Father,” said Grandmother as she folded hers up and put it back in the envelope, “we’ll hear yours, Grandfather.”

“Not right now,” said Grandfather, rising suddenly and starting for the barn.  “I’m too busy to stop any more.”  And that was the last they saw of him all afternoon.

“I do think that’s the queerest,” said Grandmother as she looked after her husband.  “He’s always so anxious to hear letters and I know he isn’t as busy as he makes out.  But if he don’t want to tell he won’t, Mary Jane, so I guess we’d better stop thinking about it.”