But Laura had got what the shed-top stood for with her; it was
Frank who had hearkened to whole forests in the stir of the one
brick-rooted fir. To that which each child had, it was already
given.

In a week or two Frank wrote Laura a letter. It was an old-fashioned
letter, you know; a big sheet, written close, four pages,
all but the middle of the last page, which was left for the
"superscription." Then it was folded, the first leaf turned down
twice, lengthwise; then the two ends laid over, toward each other;
then the last doubling, or rather trebling, across; and the open
edge slipped over the folds. A wafer sealed it, and a thimble
pressed it,--and there were twenty-five cents postage to pay. That
was a letter in the old times, when Laura and Frank Shiere were
little girls. And this was that letter:--

DEAR LAURA,--We got here safe, Aunt Oldways and I, a week ago
last Saturday, and it is _beautiful_. There is a green
lane,--almost everybody has a green lane,--and the cows go up
and down, and the swallows build in the barn-eaves. They fly
out at sundown, and fill all the sky up. It is like the specks
we used to watch in the sunshine when it came in across the
kitchen, and they danced up and down and through and away, and
seemed to be live things; only we couldn't tell, you know, what
they were, or if they really did know how good it was. But
these are big and real, and you can see their wings, and you
know what they mean by it. I guess it is all the same thing,
only some things are little and some are big. You can see the
stars here, too,--such a sky full. And that is all the same
again.