Your letter from Chicago interested me very much. It caused me to think of the time I was there several years ago. I hope your trip will end as pleasantly as it has begun. Things have been rather dull for me since you left, for there is not much happening now. Most of our friends, as you know, are away. I have been keeping pretty busy, however, and this has helped to keep me from feeling depressed. Nevertheless, there are times when I recall the happy days we had together, and then I miss you terribly... Love... He took up his brush and went tranquilly to work. Ben Rogers hove in sight presently -- the very boy, of all boys, whose ridicule he had been dreading. Ben's gait was the hop-skip-and-jump -- proof enough that his heart was light and his anticipations high. He was eating an apple, and giving a long, melodious whoop, at intervals, followed by a deep-toned ding- dong-dong, ding-dong-dong, for he was personating a steamboat. As he drew near, he slackened speed, took the middle of the street, leaned far over to star- board and rounded to ponderously and with laborious pomp and circumstance -- for he was personating the Big Missouri, and considered himself to be drawing nine feet of water. He was boat and captain and engine-bells combined, so he had to imagine himself standing on his own hurricane-deck giving the orders and executing them: