POST MASTER'S RESPONSE.

363

in her "sunday bonet," and "to shilling," the loss of which occasioned her discharge from the service of "truman buts."

Upon this unfortunate post master was thrown the charge of seeing that the city received no detriment from the demoralizing influence of Clarinda!

This gentleman, not willing to be outdone by his correspondent in his devotion to the public good, indited the following reply:

Mr. Silas Stickney.

Dear Sir:

B

Post-Office, Dec. 13, 1854.

I am in receipt of yours of the 19th ult., and in reply would say that I cannot too highly commend your solicitude in behalf of good morals, and your discretion in selecting the post master of this place to carry out your benevolent designs toward its inhabitants. The corrupting influence of small villages upon large towns is a thing much to be lamented, and it grieves me to think that the unsophisticated inhabitants of this place are to be exposed to the machinations of the "widow stacy and her to girls." It will be, sir, like the Evil One entering the garden of Eden, where all was innocence and purity!

If in the course of my official duties, I find it feasible to ward off impending danger from this immaculate town, be assured that I shall not fail to do so.

But post masters are made confidants in graver matters than these. They are not unfrequently called upon by deserted wives to look up their truant husbands, and by desolate husbands to aid them in recovering frail partners, who have been unfaithful to their marriage vows, and have forsaken the "guides of their youth.'

Letters of this description are principally from the more illiterate class of community; yet amid the crooked chirography and bad spelling, there sparkles so much tender affection, sometimes for the guilty one, sometimes for the innocent children, who are suffering from the unprincipled conduct of a parent, that these cases command the warmest sympathy of

364

WOMAN'S INSTINCT.

those whose aid is invoked, although the requests thus made relate to matters entirely out of their sphere, and consequently they are seldom able to afford much assistance to the parties in trouble.

I will here give an extract from this class of letters, as illustrating the above remarks. The following is from a letter received by the post master of a city in Ohio, from a woman who had been deserted by her husband five years previous. She requested the post master to read it to her husband, in case he should find him, so it is written at the latter person. In the postscript, (which is generally supposed to contain the pith of female correspondence,) she says,

"You would shed tears If you onley could see wat a smart peart little boy you have hear what a sham It Is to think that A sensable man should leave a wife and a child that Is got as much sense as he has-and people say he is as much like you as he can be he has got the pretys black eyes I have ever seen In any ones head he has an eye like a hawk."

Thus is the argumentum ad hominem supplied by woman's instinct. Fatherly pride was called upon to effect that to which conjugal affection was inadequate.

CHAPTER XXVII.

A Windfall for Gossipers-Suit for Slander-Profit and Loss-The Resuscitated Letter-Condemned Mail Bag-An Epistolary Rip Van Winkle.

IN country villages, where few events happen to interrupt the monotony of every day life, the occurrence of an out-ofthe-way incident is like seed sown in a fertile soil, producing a fruitful crop of speculations and surmises, and affording food for conversation for many a day to the eager gossip-hunters who abound in such small places.

About thirty years ago, the quiet town of Lebanon, in the State of Connecticut, was enlivened by one of these occurrences, which brought a new influx of curiosity-mongers to the blacksmith's shop; covered all the barrels, boxes, and counters in the store with eager disputants, and gave new life to the Sewing Society, and its auxiliary "tea-fights." The cause of this unwonted moving of the waters, was on this wise:

Mr. Jonathan Little, a well known New York merchant, while on a summer visit to Lebanon, his native place, mailed at that office a letter directed to the firm of which he was a member, and containing bank-notes to the amount of one thousand dollars. The letter failing to arrive at its destination, and Special Agents being as yet unknown, Mr. Little advertised in several papers, describing the money lost, and offering a reward for its recovery. This, however, produced 31*

(365)

no results, and the tide of speculation and discussion rose to its highest pitch.

The loss of the bewildering sum of one thousand dollars naturally stimulated the imaginative powers of the Lebanonians, and, hurried away by his zeal, or perhaps by a wish to appear sagacious, Mr. Roger Bailey, the brother of the Lebanon post master, while in conversation with several persons, incautiously asserted that Amasa Hyde, the post master at Franklin, (the next town to Lebanon on the route to New York,) had taken the letter, adding, "He's just such a fellow."

The by-standers were rather astonished at this bold charge, impeaching as it did the integrity of a man whose character had always been above suspicion. That "bird of the air" which is always ready to " carry the matter," soon diffused the information that Amasa Hyde was supposed to be the delinquent. This gentleman being indisposed to leave his reputation at the mercy of "thousand-tongued Rumor," which personage could not easily be brought before a jury, instituted inquiries for the purpose of discovering the originator of these injurious reports. He succeeded in tracing them to their source, and sued the unwary Bailey for slander. Mr. B., by the verdict of the jury, was compelled to pay some seven hundred dollars and costs, for the pleasure of expressing his opinion.

This, however, is but an episode in the history of the lost letter. After a while the excitement died away, and Mr. Little found it necessary to place the thousand dollars to the account of “Profit and Loss," especially the latter.

The theory was once advanced by an acute genius, and applied to the case of a tea-kettle inadvertently dropped into the ocean, that "a thing isn't lost when you know where it is.' But the subject in hand seems to show that a thing isn't always lost, if you don't know where it is. For, about two years after the occurrences above mentioned, the missing letter came to light with all its valuable contents. And this resuscitation

AN EPISTOLARY RIP VAN WINKLE.

367

took place, not in Lebanon, nor in Franklin, but in the New London post-office!

It appears that the mail bag which contained the letter, was found, on its arrival at New London, so much worn as to be unsafe, and was accordingly condemned by the post master and thrown aside as useless, having first, of course, been emptied of its contents, as was supposed. Two years subsequently, a quantity of old mail bags and other rubbish was removed from the office, and the letter in question took the opportunity to drop out, and return, an epistolary Rip Van Winkle, to the world whence it had retired for so long a time.