The queer row of foreign stamps
climbing over one another--she told me afterward that she had no
idea how many were needed for a letter to America, and was afraid
to ask, so she put on three times more than would have been
enough--and the address in her fair round hand,
Mr. Jacob A. Riis, Editor South Brooklyn News, Fifth Avenue cor.
Ninth Street, Brooklyn, N. Y, North America,
the postmark of the little town of Hadersleben, where she was
teaching school, the old-fashioned shape of the envelope--they all
then and there entered into my life and became part of it, to abide
forever with light and joy and thanksgiving. How much of sunshine one
little letter can contain! Six years seemed all at once the merest
breath of time to have waited for it. Toil, hardship, trouble--with
that letter in my keep? I laughed out loud at the thought. The
sound of my own voice sobered me. I knelt down and prayed long
and fervently that I might strive with all my might to deserve the
great happiness that had come to me.
The stars were long out when my landlord, who had heard my restless
walk overhead, knocked to ask if anything was the matter.
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