Traditional flash sheet with horses, eagle and dagger

The team came in off the Dayton road on Tuesday with the grey mare lame in two legs, and your father spent the whole night at the forge with the bellows going while I held the lantern. He would not let Mr Harrow take the big bay to the sale until he had reset every shoe himself. He said a horse that trusts you should be shod by a hand that trusts it back. I told him that was sentiment, and he told me to hold the light steady.

Your bicycle is still in the back lean-to where you left it. I oiled the chain on Sunday, because the damp gets into everything out there, and I found the padlock key you swore you had lost, hanging on a nail behind the door where you must have put it in a hurry. I have put it in the tin with the sewing scissors and the bottle of Mother's liniment, which I am told you never used anyway.

The men from the rail office came asking about the revolver that went missing from the depot. I told them nothing, because I know nothing, and because I kept picturing you riding off through the beech wood with your umbrella up in the rain, laughing like a fool. They did not believe me, and I did not much care.

Come home when the swallows go. The rose by the gate has finally opened, pale as your Sunday collar, and I want you to see it before the frost takes it. Bring the bicycle if you must, but leave the dagger in Chicago where it belongs.

Your loving sister, Mary