“Why, sure!” said Father.  He was so pleased to see Mother interested like this that he was fairly trembling.  She had been so still and quiet and wistful ever since the news came about Stephen.  “Why, sure!  Get some pretty wall-paper, too, while you’re ’bout it.  S’posen you and I take a run to town again in the morning and pick it out.  Then you can pick your curtains and paint, too, and get Jed Lewis to come in the afternoon and put on the first coat.  How about calling him up on the ’phone right now and asking him about it?  I’m real glad we’ve got that ’phone.  It’ll come in handy now.”

Mother’s eyes glistened.  The ’phone was another thing Stephen insisted upon before he left home.  They hadn’t used it half a dozen times except when the telegrams came, but they hadn’t the heart to have it disconnected, because Stephen had taken so much pride in having it put in.  He said he didn’t like his mother left alone in the house without a chance to call a neighbor or send for the doctor.

“Come to think of it, hadn’t you better send a telegram to that chap to-night?  You know we can ’phone it down to the town office.  He’ll maybe be worried how you’re going to take that letter.  Tell him he’s struck the right party, all right, and you’re on the job writing that little girl a letter to-night that’ll make her welcome and no mistake.  But tell him we’ll finance this operation ourselves, and he can save the ottymobeel for the next case that comes along—­words to that effect you know, Mother.”

The supper things were shoved back and the telephone brought into requisition.  They called up Jed Lewis first before he went to bed, and got his reluctant promise that he would be on hand at two o’clock the next afternoon.  They had to tell him they were expecting company or he might not have been there for a week in spite of his promise.

It took nearly an hour to reduce the telegram to ten words, but at last they settled on: 

     Bonnie welcome.  Am writing you both to-night.  No money
     necessary.

(Signed) STEPHEN’S MOTHER AND FATHER.

The letters were happy achievements of brevity, for it was getting late, and Mother Marshall realized that they must be up early in the morning to get all that shopping done before two o’clock.

First the letter to Bonnie, written in a cramped, laborious hand: 

     DEAR LITTLE GIRL: 

You don’t know me, but I’ve heard about you from a sort of neighbor of yours.  I’m just a lonely mother whose only son has gone home to heaven.  I’ve heard all about your sorrow and loneliness, and I’ve taken a notion that maybe you would like to come and visit me for a little while and help cheer me up.  Maybe we can comfort each other a little bit, and, anyhow, I want you to come.

Father and I are fixing up your room for you, just as we would if you were our own daughter coming home from college.  For you