week before he moved down here in this Harpeth Valley, where the air
is to keep Mother a little longer for us to know she's here even if we
can't always see her every day, and then he said:

"Phil, old girl, I'm not going to take Miss Rogers with us to go on
with your solitary brand of education. There is a little one-horse
school in Byrdsville that they call the Byrd Academy, and I watched a
bunch of real human boys and girls go in the gate the morning I got
there. I think you will have to be one of them. I want to see a few
hayseeds sprinkled over your very polished surface."

I laughed with him. That is the good thing about Father: you can
always laugh with him, even if you are not sure what you are laughing
about. Laughing _at_ a person is just as rude as eating an apple
right in his face. Father always divides his apple. Though rich, he is
a really noble man.

But although I didn't cry when I heard Belle talking a course of
righteous action into fat Mamie Sue about me, I made up my mind that I
would have to have some sort of person to talk to, so I bought this
book. I am going to call it "Louise" and do as good a stunt of
pretending that it has got brown hair and blue eyes and a real heart
as I can. All I have written up to now has just been introducing
myself to Louise. Our real adventures and conversations will come
later.

Before I have gone to bed all this week I have been taking a peep out
of my window down over the back garden to Roxanne Byrd's cottage and
asking her in my heart to forgive me for taking her home, and asking
God to make her love the cottage as I would like to be let to love