The $30,000 Bequest, and Other Stories

-it always astonishes me. It affects me as the locomotive always affects me: I say to myself, "I have seen you a thousand times, you always look the same way,

r shade will not mind. And with it I wish to print the answer which I wrote at the time but probably did not send. If it went-which is not likely-it went in the form of a copy, for I find the original still here, pi

LE

fornia, JU

lemens, HAR

he time they had dried-apple-pie, Uncle Simmons often speaks of it. It seems curious that dried-apple-pie should have seemed such a great thing, but it was, and it shows how far Humboldt was out of the world and difficult to get to, and how slim the regular bill of fare was. Sixteen years ago-it is a long time. I was a little girl then, only fourteen. I never saw you, I lived in Washoe. But Uncle Simmons ran across you every now and then, all during those weeks that you and party were there working your claim which was like the rest. The camp played out long and long ago, there wasn't silver enough in it to make a button. You never saw my husband, but he was there after you left, and lived in that very lean-to, a bachelor then but married to me now. He often wishes there had been a photographer there in those days, he would have taken the lean-to. He go

and family. I intend it as a su

ble write me a letter to some publisher, or, better st

s favor. With deepest gratitude

ew a relative of mine," etc., etc. We should all like to help the applicants, we should all be glad to do it, we should all like to return the sort of answer that is desired, but-Well, there is not a thing we can do that would be a help, for not in any instance does that latter ever come from anyone who can be helped. The struggler whom you could help does his own helping; it would not occur to him to apply to you, stranger. He has talent and knows it, and he goes into his fight eagerly and with energy and determination-all alone, preferring to be alon

RE

flection you find you still desire it. There will be a conv

do her book

am not acquai

been her

don't

as one,

I thi

ink this is h

uppose so.

out? What is the

eve I do

e you

-no, I

long have y

on't k

't kno

N

come to be interest

asked me to find a publishe

he apply to you

d me to use

as influence to do

would be more likely to examine

ay a book unexamined because it's a stranger's? It would be foolish. No publisher does it. On what ground did she request

he knew

rt for believing you competent to recommend her

-I knew h

w her

Y

er literature; he endorses it to you; the chain is complet

o I came near knowing her husband before she married him, and I did know the abandoned shaft where a premature blast went off

, or to t

n't say wh

ow her literature, you don't know who got hurt when the blast went off, you don

cle. You are for

e? Did you know him

ve met him, anyway. I think it was that way; you can't tell

? When wa

een yea

As first you said you knew him, and no

y, I think I thought I did;

u think you thou

e says I d

e say

did know him, too, thoug

u know it when you

now lots of things that I don't remember, and remember lots of

use). Is your

ell, no

Min

eckon; I never do that; I have seen the evil effects of it. My m

ccount of overwork, and there it would end and nothing done. I wish I could be useful to you, but, you see, they do not care for uncles or any of those things; it doesn't move them, it doesn't have the least effect, they don't care for anything but the literature itse