these fowls, but it will be a good outdoor vocation for Mary, amusing
and lucrative, besides being thoroughly feminine, for such poultry
raising was considered even in my younger days.

"A book, _The Complete Guide to Poultry Farming_, which I sent Mary a
year ago on her birthday, as a mere suggestion, will tell her all she
need know in the beginning, and the responsibility and occupation itself
will be a good corrective for giving too much time to the beauties of
the flower garden, which are merely pleasurable.

"I need not remind you that the different breeds should be housed
separately, but you who always had a gift for carpentry can easily
arrange this. Indeed it was only yesterday that in opening a chest of
drawers I came across a small lead saw bought for sixpence, with which
you succeeded in quite cutting through the large Wisteria vine on
Grandma Bartram's porch! I wished to punish you, but she said--'No,
Susanna, rather preserve the tool as a memento of his industry and
patience.'

"I wish that I could be near to witness your natural surprise on
receiving this token of our approval, but I must trust Mary to write us
of it.

"Your mother,
"SUSAN BARTRAM PENROSE."


With something between a groan and a laugh Bart dropped this letter into
my lap, with the others.