READING
1
Read the short story and explain what important change takes place at the end of the story.
Letters in the Mail
ered the time she
Mal
one
hav
(After Erskine Caldwell)
their plan. Suddenly she turned away. She didn't wa
In general, almost everybody likes to receive mail and
young men to see her crying. She remembered the time
perhaps nobody in the whole town of Stillwater liked to get
had got acquainted with Ray and the letter she had so
letters more than Ray Buffin did. But, unfortunately, Ray
received from him. Ray had written to tell her how bear
received fewer letters in his box at the post-office than any
ful and lovely he thought she was and how much he love
body else. Nobody wrote letters to him except that once a
month he did get a bill from the gas and electric company her. He ended the letter by asking her to marry him. But
she had just finished school then and had started to work
and occasionally he found advertising matter in his own
box like everybody else in town.
for the telephone company, she was very young then and
In Stillwater, mail was delivered once a day. Soon after didn't want to marry anybody yet; and so Ray never got a
letters, magazines and newspapers had been put into the reply. Time passed. During all those years she had seen him
letter boxes, Ray closed his shop, where he made a living a few times but rarely more than a polite word had passed
repairing radios, and hurried to the post-office. He was very between them, and each time he looked sadder and sadder
disappointed if there was no mail for him, but he always After they left the telephone office Grace thought about
had a feeling that one of these days he would get some. Ray and cried. Late at night she wrote the letter.
One afternoon, after watching Ray Buffin waiting for The next day Guy and Ralph were in the post-office
a letter at the post-office, two of the younger men in town, at four o'clock. When Ray came in and saw a letter in his
Guy Hodge and Ralph Barnhill, decided to play a joke on box he looked at it in surprise. He couldn't believe his eyes.
him. Their plan was to ask a girl in town to send Ray a love He opened the box, took out the pale-blue envelope and
letter without signing it; and then somebody else was to went to the corner of the room to read it. When he finished
take the letter out of his hand and read it aloud for every- he behaved like mad. He smiled happily and ran out of the
body to hear. They asked Grace Brooks, the night switch room before the people there had time to say anything to
operator at the telephone company to write the letter s top him.
Grace was a pretty woman with a fine figure. She had
remained unmarried, and because she worked at night and
The moment Guy and Ralph understood what had
slept in the daytime it was very difficult for her now, she
happened, they ran after him trying to stop him. But it was
knew, to find a husband.
too late. Ray hurried round the corner to the telephone of
At first Grace said she would have nothing to do with
fice. When Ralph and Guy followed him they found Ray
and Grace together.​