You have read parables in the Bible. Well, I am preaching a modern parable. "Book learning" is a sword and buckler--or perhaps it would be better to say that it is a suit of strong hunting clothes and thick leather knee-boots, and I was pretty well clad like that when I started my trip, while you are dressed only in thin gingham, with your legs and feet bare--as I first saw you. Please shut your eyes, dear child, and try to see the parable picture I have drawn for you. Have you done it? The picture is not as pretty as the one I painted the night I told about how fine it was to be a nurse, is it? But it is more nearly true to life. Now, think hard before you make up your mind as to whether or not you really mean to go ahead, for--after all, little Smiles--each boy and girl has soon to decide, all alone, what he or she is going to do with that strange thing which we call life. If your courage is really as strong as that of the wonderful Joan of Arc, I, too, believe that you can succeed and make your dream come true, and of course I will help you, gladly--in every way that I can. Now I am all through preaching. It is out of my line, and I promise not to do it again. Within a few days you will, I hope, get a boxful of the books which I have sent you as you asked me. Most of them are just what you wanted--school books--but on my own hook I added one or two not strictly for study--like plums in a dry bread pudding. And, of course, there is something else in the box and _I_ guess that _you_ can guess what it is. This, little Smiles, is the longest letter I ever wrote to anybody, I think. Don't you feel proud? It must end now, however; but not before I ask you to give my best regards to your kind granddaddy. Don't let the cold winter that is coming, chill your warm affection for Your sincere friend, Donald MacDonald. P.S. I told Mike what you wrote to him, and he wigwagged a message of love back to you with his tail. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - II Big Jerry's Cabin in Webb's Gap, Virginia. Sep't. 20, 1912. Dear Doctor Mac: Oh, dear doctor, can you ever forgive me for waiting two whole days before I wrote you back to thank you with all my heart for the many wonderful things which came in that box? It was like a fairy's treasure chest. And most of all I am obliged for that letter you wrote me. It was the first letter I ever got from any one and I shall keep it as long as I live. I think, of all the things I got, I like that the best. Those others you could _buy_, but you had to _make_ that yourself, and it seemed like I could almost hear you talking the words in your strong voice, like the sound of the falls in the Swift River.