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Show ; .j DIRECTIONS FOR LETTER WRIT- j IiNG. J Write on one side of paper only. Do not have letters too long. Address all letters to "Aunt Busy," Intermounoain Catholic. Salt Lake City, Utah, May 31. 1900. Dear Aunt Busy: I always like to read the letters in the Intermountain Catholic from your nephews and nieces, and I would like to be one of them. I am 9 years old. I have one sister who is 14 years old. One of my brothers is 12 and the other is 10. 1 have two little kittens, one black and one gray. I go to St. Patrick's church. Father Richard Kiely is our Priest, and ! I love him almost as much as Father Morris. Sister Alameda is my Sunday school teacher. She gave me an Ag-nusdier Ag-nusdier for good lessons. Well, dear Aunt Busy, my letter is getting too long so 1 wil close, but 1 -will write soon again. You are a very welcome little niece. Aunt Busy is glad to know that you like the letters written by the boys and girls. But why did you not sign f your name? Did you forget? Aunt Busy has looked everywhere for it. Won't you sfnd it next week? So you love Father Kielv and Father Morrisey! Well, all the little folks do, because they love the children, too. Write soon again, little niece, and tell us year name. Grand Junction, Colo., June 12. Dear Aunt Busy: I have seen only one letter in the Intermountain In-termountain Catholic that came from Grand Junction, so I thought I would write one to you, but I have not much time, as I have to study my catechism, for I intend to make my first Holy Communion on the 24th of June. I have one sister and four brothers. 1 have a little baby brother who ;.vill be rive months old the 17th; his name is Francis. Well, my letter is getting . long, so I guess 1 will close. From your loving niece, LENA FRIEDMAXX. ' Aunt Busy is always happy to see the Colorado postmark on her letters. She has some dear nehews and nieces over there. May you make a happy First Holy Communion, dear little girl. Write and tell us all about it the week after, will you? Aunt Busy wishes she could see your little brother. a Red Cliff, Colo., June 12, 1S00. i Dear Aunt Busy: As many of your Colorado nephews and nieces are writing to you, 1 will be one of them, too. I am 10 years, and in the fourth grade. We have no fiis-ters' fiis-ters' school here, so I go to the public school. We take the Intermountain Catholic. I have two little brothers, Wiliie and Leonard. We live twenty-five twenty-five miles from Lead vl lie. We have a little church in town, and we have Mass in it sometimes when Father Robertson comes. Hoping to see this Si print. I will say goodby. Your loving niece. , ELEANOR WALSIL Another little Colorado niece!- Aunt Busy has said so many nice things about her Colorado boys and girls that she cannot think of any more. Aunt Busy once knew your Father Robertson. Robert-son. Write soon again, little Eleanor, and tell Aunt Busy about your little brothers. but he said nothing until he reached the door, then, giving the teacher a reproachful re-proachful look, with a pitying glance toward the dog, he said slowly: "And he's named for you!" ' "Father John," said Johnny Lovell, "I hate girls that is, most girls. There are some good ones in our class, but that Mattie Jessop is is a terror. I mean 'terror.' She scares me." "How very sad," Father John answered, an-swered, looking anything but serious. "How does she frighten you? Sword, pistol, gatling, or a simple club?" "I shouldn't care for those," said Johnny; "she would be more afraid of them than I should. She talks." "It is a habit with girls and with some boys. Do you want her to be dumb?" "I wish she was! If I say anything, anything as simple as, 'Rivers run down hill,' she snaps out, 'I never heard that they did,' or 'First time ever I heard of that!' The other day I told that old Betsy Ross story, and Mattie squealed out, 'I never heard that Betsy Ross made the first American Amer-ican tlag!' " "What did you answer?" "Oh, I said, "Well, she did, now! So'.' " "That was no answer! You should always reply to words, not to a supposed sup-posed thought. Mattie did not say that Betsy, did not make the first flag, but that shp hprsplf had Tipvpr heard of it. If you were a lady, and older than Mat-tie, Mat-tie, you might say, 'How very sad, dear! The story is quite true. You will find it in many school books and volumes of anecdotes and in the historical magazines,' mag-azines,' but being only a boy, you are not called upon to educate Miss Martha." Mar-tha." "Well, being a boy, father, what shall I do? ' "A girl of your age, a cat-tish girl, one of the kind whose mothers boast that they are 'so self-possessed, and 'quite women of the world,' would say, 'No?' and wait for Miss Mattie to reply. Your principal would probably utter an astonished, 'Is it possible?' You, being a boy, must not be rude to a girl, even when she is rude to you. Neither must you be so exasperatingly civil that you will humiliate her; therefore, there-fore, you cannot say, as the self-possessed girl might, that since she does not believe you, you feel compelled to say that the story may be found in such and such a place, quoting chapter chap-ter and verse. You can simply let the matter go and talk of something else." "She would say the same thing about any subject whatsoever! You don't know her, father." "Well, it is not your business to reform re-form her! Endure it or avoid her. Some day she will encounter somebody not afraid of her. I am glad that you are. I mistrust self-possessed boys and a little man of the world 'is a 'terror' to me. Each of us has his streak of cowardice, cow-ardice, you see." "Well, what do you think of this, father? fa-ther? The other day the expressman brought some things up to the principal's prin-cipal's office while I was there filling out some reports for him. Mattie was in the head assistant's office on the other side of the great hall, and of course she saw everything, because both offices are glass cased, and she saw me go off afterwards, locking the door and putting the key in my pocket. Soon the principal came up the stairs, four at a time, and found the door locked. Before he could say a Word I was there with the keys, for I had remembered and turned back, and he had passed me on the stairs. Mattie was coming across the hall and heard me apologize and she squeaked out, 'There, Johnny Lovell! I came over because I thought you were going to say that the expressman locked the door! He didn't lock the door!' She was out of breath, and I was as red as a poppy. "Now, I had heard the principal say once that he left the girls' manners, when they had any, to the head assistant, as-sistant, and so I did not expect him to say much. He always teaches us, you know, that an American gentleman gentle-man must be polite to all women and girls, even to his own little daughters, and when he scolds one of the girls, it means that he thinks that she has done something unwomanly. I never heard him scold even the littlest primarian, but they say that when he does scold a girl, it half kills her." ' "Possible? Did he half kill Martha?" "No. He just looked at her and said, . 'Thank you very much, Miss Jessop. Would you mind locking the other office and taking the keys down stairs?' Then he took me into his office and there he kept me ten minutes and then sent me home, -with orders not to go near the class room on the way. Of course I knew that he meant, 'Don't speak to Mattie about this,' and I didn't, but wasn't she hateful, father?" The good priest smiled. "Johnny, my boy,", said he, "do you know that when c I was 12 years old, I had just that vexatious vex-atious trick of speech that Mattie has? When very little, I used to say, 'I don't believe that,' or 'What a story!' and somebody told me that 'I never heard of that,' was less impolite, and I used that phrase instead. I must have been a nuisance to everybody, until I met with a boy as rude as I was, and when I said, 'I never heard of that,' he answered, an-swered, 'More fool you!' Then he thrashed me, and then explained that he did not care whether I had heard of things or not. I was taller than he, too. It cured me. But I do not remember re-member that when I used the impolite phrase I thought much about its mean-nig. mean-nig. When I had said 'I don't believe you,' I meant no more than 'How strange!' and my 'I never heard of that' expressed my mind no better. You yourself do not take the phrase at its proper value when Mattie speaks it, but are as angry as if she accused you of falsehood. Johnny, it takes a lifetime to learn the precise value of words, and we spend half our days In misunderstandings." "If you heard Mattie, you wouldn't think there was anything timid about her," said Johnny, "but I'm willing to pretend" that there is. I'll be as meek as Moses in future. It isn't worth while to be mad with a girl." Father John laughed. "Two very bad errors in one sentece! You imply that the girl cannot make trouble, and that you yourself are too high and mighty to be troubled by her. Continue in that way of thinking, and you will grow up as one of those odious men who assume that they, no matter how stupidly ignorant, are superior to the wisest women. Such men are the laughing stock of all women and deserve de-serve to be. It isn't 'worth while' to be angry with anybody, although I am afraid that most of us are so very often. The man who thinks it not worth while to be as heedful and considerate con-siderate of a woman's words and acts as if she were a man is sure to be sorry for it. However, you seem to be quite as thoughtful about Mattie as you should be. Has she any other faults?" "I don't know," answered Johnny, and then added frankly: "She makes me so cros that I nevr think of her except as contradicting. You think I'm very silly, I know." "A little," said Father John. "Do you know a boy who would like to drive out to Dedham with me and forget for-get his silliness while looking at the orchards?" Did Johnny know a boy? Judging by his looks as he skipped into the outside car he knew a boy who could forget anything in a drive with Father Fath-er John. The Pilot |