"Maybe 'twould be better," Allee agreed, as she ran away to the house for writing materials.

Then began the task of composing a letter which should cover their wants; but so many obstacles presented themselves to the inexperienced writers, that the afternoon had waned before a satisfactory epistle had resulted.

"There," sighed Peace at length, "I guess that will do. It is short enough so's it won't take anyone long to make five copies, and it's long enough so's no one can be mistaken about what we mean. I wish I knew whether Hope kept the one she got. Maybe we could have gone by that and made a better letter of ours. This one in the magazine didn't help very much 'cause it talks about the Ladies' Aid, and we couldn't use that, for everybody would know a Ladies' Aid would want something besides b.u.t.tons in their work. Do you think ours will do?"

"Yes, it's perfectly elegant," the younger child replied, lovingly fingering the inky page of tipsy letters which she had just finished.

"Now who are you going to send them to?"

"I've been thinking of that all the while we were writing, and I've already got a list of more'n five."

"Who?"

"Well, there's Lorene Meadows for a starter. She lives in Chicago and is acquainted with slews of kids which we don't know. Then there's Mrs.

Grinnell in Parker, and Hec Abbott and Tessie and Effie and Jessie and Miss Dunbar and Annette Fisher and Mrs. Bainbridge and Mrs. Hartman and oh--all the Parker folks."

"Then s'posing we write more'n five to begin with."

"I hadn't thought of that. There's no reason why we shouldn't. Let's make it ten,--that's all the stamps I've got."

"All right."

Both girls set to work laboriously scribbling the ten copies of their chain letter, then sealed and addressed them, and Allee dropped them into the mail box on the corner just as the dinner bell pealed out its summons to the dining-room.

School began the next Monday. The following day the first link in the endless chain was received from Lorene, who enclosed twelve handsome b.u.t.tons and asked full particulars about the b.u.t.ton collection, as she desired to start one for herself, and could Peace send her twelve b.u.t.tons in exchange for hers? This was an unforeseen development, but Peace was so delighted with this first dozen that she set Allee to hunting up stray b.u.t.tons about the house with which to satisfy the demands of any other youthful collectors. On Wednesday two more answers were received, one from Mrs. Grinnell, containing forty of the oddest looking b.u.t.tons the girls had ever seen; and one from a stranger in Chicago, probably a friend of Lorene's, for she, too, asked for b.u.t.tons in return.

Peace sighed, divided the contents of the two packages with an impartial hand, and remarked, "It's lucky Mrs. Grinnell don't want forty in exchange. We had only thirty-six to begin with, and Lorene's twelve and this girl's eight leaves us only sixteen, s'posing we get many more answers asking for some."

Fortunately for her peace of mind, however, only one other letter made such a request, but a new dilemma arose. Packages began to arrive with insufficient postage, and the crippled girl's pocket money vanished with alarming rapidity. The letter carrier always delivered the daily budget of mail to the little maid under the trees when the weather permitted of her being at her post, and it chanced that for a fortnight after the answers to her endless chain began pouring in, she received her own mail, so no one but Allee knew her secret, and there was no one but Allee to help her out with her heavy postage bills.

"I never s'posed anyone would send out packages without enough stamps on 'em," she complained to her loyal supporter one night, after an unusually heavy mail and a correspondingly heavy drain on her pocketbook. "And the trouble is, the letters that have the most money to pay on them hold the ugliest b.u.t.tons. I spent twelve cents for stamps today. That's the worst yet. Yesterday it was ten, and seven the day before. There won't be much of my monthly dollar left if it keeps on this way. The postman got sa.s.sy this morning and asked me if I'd started a--a correspondence school, or if I was having a birthday shower every day. I'm tired of the sight of b.u.t.tons!"

"Already?" cried Allee. "Why, I think they are fine. If your dollar is all spent before the month is up, you can use mine. I ought to pay half the stampage anyway, as long as I get half the b.u.t.tons. All the girls at school are wild to know where we get so many, but I won't tell. There's eight hundred on your string and seven hundred and fifty on mine."

"But I divided 'em even--"

"I know you did, but you see, I traded some, and Dolly Thomas cried 'cause she had only twenty b.u.t.tons on her string, so I gave her a few of mine."

"Well, I wish we had some way to make the chain end," sighed Peace disconsolately. "I've got as big a c'lection as I want now and still they keep a-coming. That's just the way those silk sc.r.a.ps did to the Ladies' Aid in the story. O, dear, don't I get into the worst messes! I wouldn't mind if they'd pay their own stamps, but I want my money for Christmas, and if this keeps up I'll have to break into my bank. I thought it would be such fun to get mail every day, but the very sight of the postman now makes me sick."

"We might tell Grandpa. He'd know what to do," suggested Allee, seeing that Peace was really heartily tired of this deluge of b.u.t.tons.

"I--I hate to do that. He'd think we were little sillies and I guess we are."

"'Twas your plan," Allee briefly informed her, for she did not care to be called a "silly" by anyone.

"Of course it was," Peace hastily acknowledged. "And I'm tired of it.

Maybe--don't you think Miss Edith could tell us what to do?"

"I b'lieve she could. Ask her tomorrow. She'll be sure to pa.s.s, even if she doesn't have time to stop awhile. O, see who's coming!"

"Elspeth!" cried Peace, almost bouncing out of her chair in her eagerness to greet the dear friend whose face she had not seen for many weeks.

"My little girlies!" The woman's sweet face bent over the eager one among the pillows and lingered there. It was the first time she had seen the crippled child since the doctors had p.r.o.nounced her case hopeless, and she had feared that her presence might recall to Peace's mind the great misfortune, and bring on a deluge of tears. But Peace was thinking of other things than wheel-chairs. This was the first time she had seen her Elspeth since the Angel Baby had slipped away to its Maker, and she glanced apprehensively into the tender blue eyes above her, expecting to find them dim with tears of grief for the little one she had lost.

Instead, they were smiling serenely. She had locked her sorrow deep down in her heart, and only G.o.d and her good St. John knew what a heavy ache throbbed in her breast.

So the brown eyes smiled bravely back, and after a moment the eager voice asked reproachfully, "Didn't you bring the b--the children? I haven't seen Baby Elspeth yet, and she is--"

"Two months old tomorrow," proudly answered the mother. "Yes, we brought her. We call her Bessie to avoid confusion of names. St. John has her now, but he happened to meet our postman on the street back there and stopped to tell him about some mail that he doesn't want delivered any longer."

"What kind of mail?" Peace breathlessly demanded, suddenly remembering her endless chain of letters.

"O, some cheap magazines that keep coming. He wrote the publishers two or three times to discontinue them, but it didn't do any good, so now he is telling the postman not to bring them any more."

"Is that all you have to do?" The brown eyes were glowing with eagerness.

"Yes. Refuse to accept them when the postman brings them and they will soon stop coming."

"Will it work with packages?"

"With anything, I guess."

"What happens to the things you refuse?"

"O, some of them are returned to the sender, some go to the dead-letter office, and others are just destroyed, I guess."

"Oh!" Peace had received all the information she needed, and as St. John now appeared at the gate with Glen in tow and Baby Bessie in his arms, she turned her attention to her guests, who, as a special surprise for the invalid, had been invited to stay for dinner.

The next day, however, when the postman made his appearance with his arms bulging with packages, and a grin of amus.e.m.e.nt stretching his mouth from ear to ear, he was astounded to hear the little lady in the wheel-chair say crisply, "Take 'em all back. I won't receive another one you bring me. I s'pose there is postage to pay on most of 'em, too, ain't there?"

"Fifteen cents," he acknowledged.

"Well, this is the time you don't get your fifteen cents," she announced calmly but with decision.

"But I can't deliver these packages until that is paid."

"Goody! I'm tired of the sight of them. The very looks of you coming up the walk gives me a pain. Don't bring me another single package. Take them back to the--the letter undertaker--"

"The what?" His eyes were twinkling, and he had hard work to keep his twitching lips from breaking into an audible chuckle.

"The place you send mail when it ain't wanted by the person it's supposed to go to. I've had all I care to do with chain letters. I really didn't think they were _endless_ or I never would have started mine. We've got b.u.t.tons enough to start a department store already."

The light of understanding broke over the postman's rugged features. "So it was a chain letter, was it?"

"Yes."

"And you don't want any more packages?"

"I won't _accept_ any more." She bobbed her head emphatically and set all the short curls to dancing.