At each one he reached into a drawer in his desk, took a card, and wrote his name on it.
"There are a good many of these every day," said Longfellow, "but I always like to do this little favor.

It is so little to do, to write your name on a card; and if I didn't do it some boy or girl might be looking, day by day, for the postman and be disappointed.

I only wish I could write my name better for them.

You see how I break my letters?
That's because I never took pains with my writing when I was a boy.

I don't think I should get a high mark for penmanship if I were at school, do you ?" "I see you get letters from Europe," said the boy, as Longfellow opened an envelope with a foreign stamp on it.
"Yes, from all over the world," said the poet.