FEBRUARY 23: The Stamp Traveler
“I am very superior,” said the Postage Stamp. “I travel all over the world. My family have always traveled. We don’t stay in one place—of course sometimes we do—but more often we go away. Now and again our little one-cent brothers go about the town, but we, the noble two-cent stamps, how we travel.”
“You don’t travel any more than we do,” said the Envelope upon which the stamp was stuck fast.
“I disagree with you,” said the Stamp.
“That makes no difference to me,” said the Envelope. “But if you disagree with me, why don’t you leave me?”
“I can’t,” said the Stamp.
“Of course you can’t, you poor dear,” said the Ink which had made the address on the envelope. “You’re stuck to the Envelope, and no matter how hard you quarrel you still have to stick.”
“Well, I’d like to know if you don’t have to stay on too,” said the Stamp.
“Ah, but I have fun when I’m being put on. Sometimes I make a nice smudgy spot, and then the Creature who has been writing with me does not know what to do.
“The Creature will argue like this, ‘Now shall I let the Envelope go as it is, or shall I address a fresh one? There is something queer about this Ink.’ Then it is that I chuckle. ‘No,’ the Creature continues, ‘I think I will not notice the smudgy spot. Maybe the persons getting it will think that the rain has made it look so badly—rain often gets at a letter.’
“And so the Creature blames it on the rain, and I go off quite free.”
“That’s not to your credit when you’re guilty,” said the Envelope.
“We mustn’t quarrel,” said the Postage Stamp, “as now we’re off for a trip. The man is putting us in a bag. Then we go on a train—then to a new Post Office, and at last we reach the place for which we started.”
“Yes,” said the Ink, “the place I have marked with my ink!”