Janet | Page 4

and the breeze coming in from the water took the skirt of her gingham dress and flapped it as it would a sail.
"Boru, do you know what I am going to do?" she demanded very seriously.
Boru was a little surprised and disturbed at being so unceremoniously upset but he cocked one ear expectantly.
"I'm going to write and tell him so," she announced defiantly.
Her determination did not leave her even when she was seated at her big desk, where everything was arranged in perfect order for letter writing. Janet had written her brother at stated intervals during her thirteen years, but each and every letter had always been carefully read and corrected by her grandmother. Stiff and formal noted were the result. As for answers, she had never received any, as far back as she could remember, but a brief typewritten note reached her grandmother twice a year and stated, rather than said, that Thomas was well and that the ranch in far-away Arizona was as successful as could be expected under the conditions of the present year. True, he never forgot to send his love to Janet, but Janet, from early childhood, had had a very decided idea about that sort of love. To-day she meant to make that idea known.
With a great deal of care and precision she selected an especially clean sheet of paper and a square and very businesslike envelope, put a new gold pen in her penholder and set to work. The first words she wrote were "Dear Thomas," then she stopped. There were so many things she wanted to say. She looked to Boru for inspiration. He was gazing thoughtfully at a fly that was crawling across the floor; the instant it started to fly he pounced on it. Janet laughed. "Thanks, Boru; that is just what I'll do myself; I'll gobble Thomas up all at once." She turned back to her desk and wrote under the "Dear Thomas:"
"I have been meaning to write to you for ever so long and to say just what I wanted to, and so I might as well tell you right away that grandmother is not going to see this letter at all. It's just from me to you, and I'm not going to be particular about grammar or blots. The most 'special things I have to say are all questions, and then some other things that are not very nice. Perhaps I'd better start with those. The first on is that I think you would be a lot nicer if you called yourself Tom or Tommy, instead of Thomas. Of course, I don't know what you look like, for the only picture I have of you is a baby one that I know you would perfectly hate, but I think you are short and frown a lot, and I hope you haven't a beard but I'm afraid you have. I just told Boru, that's my dog, but you probably wouldn't like him, that you are not a bit what a big brother ought to be, and I really don't think you are, and I might as well say that you would have been much more of a comfort to me if you'd been a sister.
"The questions I want to ask you are: What do you do in Arizona, and are you ever coming home, and do you ride horseback, and don't you like to be with lots of people instead of just a few that someone else chooses for you, and what would you think of a boy who was afraid of snakes? If you say that he's a sensible boy -- that's what grandmother would say -- I'll never like you, never.
"If I only knew you and you were nice like the boys in the books I read, how many things we could talk over! I could ask you about all the things that really matter -- the things that grandmother won't even let me mention. Thomas, I'm really not too young to be told things. I'd grow up all in a minute if I could be with girls my own age. But I don't expect you'll understand, so I won't write any more. I've said some of the things that I wanted to and that makes me feel a little bit better."
She hesitated over the ending, and finally decided just to sign her name. Then without reading over what she had written, lest her resolve weaken, she folded up the paper and put it into its envelope.
Boru's tail thumping on the floor made her conscious of steps outside her door, and she hastily finished writing the address and slipped the letter into her pocket just as Martha opened the door.
"Now, Miss Janet, not dressed for your tea, and it's almost six o'clock, and Miss Waters with