It happened Edmund had done it. Couldn’t keep his mouth shut about the school-house question. It was the old men’s duty, he claimed, to give their land for the school-house. Edmund was awful about people’s duty. He brung it up, though, in a new way. He thought he was makin’ a joke. Hands out the pieces of the decanter to Jake and Baldy, and tells ’em they done that damage and it was their business to make it good; so when they, who had never seen the decanter before, didn’t make out what he was drivin’ at, Edmund tells ’em they’re the final cause. He explains how if they’d given their land, the school-house would have been built and no accidents would have occurred. Edmund meant that to be funny, but Jake and Baldy went off cursin’ him and the school and the whole valley, and wasn’t a bit grateful for learnin’ what a final cause is. But back they comes in a day or two as usual, as if no words had passed, and they buy their truck to go trappin’. Takes ’em all day, but Edmund is wonderful patient. So they can’t start that day. So they comes back next day to pack up and start. And it was then that Washington, D.C., comes up again. The Siwash was a day overdue with the mail, and some of the Texans was assembled at the store to see the mail arrive. They expected no letters, but it was somethin’ to do and they always done it--assembled and stood around inside the store and out. Then to-day they had more to do, for there was Kultus Jake and Frisco Baldy and their horses, packin’ up their stuff. That gave everybody a chance to make remarks and be wise. They hardly noticed the mail when it did come about ten o’clock, they was so busy tellin’ the old men the best way to do everythin’--best trap, best bait, best way to make a set--when Edmund he begins to lecture. He comes out with a letter in his hand and holds it up. That’s the subject of the lecture. Letter has come to the wrong Beekman. It was mailed at Portland, Awregon, and addressed to “Beekman, Massachusetts,” and it has come out of its way to “Beekman, Washington,” thereby losin’ a lot of time, of course. For it had went over the Northern Pacific on its right way as far as Spokane, and then had come back through Coulee City away up here, and it would get to Beekman, Massachusetts, about two weeks late. “It all comes,” says Edmund, “of havin’ places of the same name. That ought to be against the law.” He told us there was nine Beekmans. He took it to heart heavy, as usual. “As the country grows and settles up,” he says, “they’ll keep on namin’ places Beekman. There’ll be a hundred Beekmans before we’re through. It ought to be a state’s prison offence.” “In that case,” says a Texas parent, “you couldn’t call this territory Washington.” “I guess this is a free country,” says another. “I guess,” says another, “the folks that live in a place has the right to call that place what they see fit.” Poor Edmund! It wasn’t no use him explainin’ the confusion it made.