"It might lie here all week in case none of them happened to come to the store, and it looks as if it might be important." Jake slipped the letter into the band of his broad-brimmed straw hat and slouched lazily out of the store.

An old blaze-faced sorrel horse whinnied as he stepped up to untie it.

Jake mounted and rode off slowly, his bare feet dangling far below the stirrups.

It was two miles to the Appleton farm, down a hot, dusty road, and he took his time in going.
Well for little Betty that she did not know what wonderful surprise was on its way to her, or she would have been in a fever of impatience for the letter to arrive.
It had been a tiresome day for the child.

Up before five, in her bare little room in the west gable, busy with morning chores until breakfast was ready, she had earned a rest long before the Little Colonel's day had begun.