When I returned with the mail I told the Superior what I heard the postmaster say about her and her boys. She seemed very much pleased, smiled, and said: “Boys are good when they are taught to say their prayers and to fear God.” Shortly after, I was appointed “mailman.” I went to the village every day after school. When the weather was fine I walked; if it was bad, I rode in or on the coach with Tommy. This was the first and only “appointment” of my life. I did not think it over then, but I know now I was not given it because I said “please” or my prayers⁠—I got it because I had told the Superior the nice things the postmaster said. “Please” is a good word in its place; but it does not get one appointed to anything. It has a proper place in a small boy’s vocabulary. And it is also much used by a certain class of prisoners and supplicants who are always “pleasing” somebody and are never pleasant to anybody.

Your capable beggar on the street does not say “please.” He rips off his spiel in such exact and precise language that he gets your dime without it. You so admire his “art” that you do not miss the “please.” His is an art. He omits the “please” because he knows you do not use it except when you want the mustard.

Looking back, it seems to me that our life in the convent was not properly balanced. We had none of the rough, boisterous times so dear to the small boy, no swimming, baseball, football. We were a little too cloistered, too quiet, too subdued. There was no wrestling, no boxing, no running and jumping and squabbling and shuffling and shouldering about. Of course I learned all those later. But I learned them quickly, too quickly⁠—all in a bunch. That put me out of balance again. Those exercises should have been mixed in with my studies and prayers.

One stormy day I came out of the post office and as usual handed up the paper to Tommy, whose habit it was to glance at the headlines and return it to me. This day, however, he found something that interested him. He put the horses’ lines between his legs and crossed his knees on them. I sat beside him on the box and shivered in the wind. He read on and on, column after column, then turned to an inner page, fighting the paper in the wind.