A few weeks ago I was practically a mental case, couldn’t even get out of bed like a normal person. And now my ship has come in and all my old wishes have come true. Plus I’ve even got a job, and have greatly curbed my appetite for reading Annabel’s mail, etc. (I still read it, but I don’t always copy it down any more.) So what kind of a person would I have to be to get sore just because Echo O’Brien, aged thirty-one, doesn’t happen to be passionately in love with me, aged sixteen? A nut? I’d have to be some kind of a neurotic for godsake! Besides, how many people have these fantastic sister-in-laws sleeping in all the spare bedrooms? And brothers that are so wild they’re practically crooks, and then all of a sudden turn into tame ordinary people with neckties and big plumbing corporations?

Well I, for one, happen to feel just sensational about this whole thing, practically.

Tomorrow I’m going on a health binge, get some filter cigarettes and start doing push-ups every night. Maybe I’ll do some right now, to make myself sleepy. Because I’ve got about forty-seven big knots in my chest, and they hurt.

Au revoir, notebook, old pal, old thing. You’ve had it. This is my last entry. If Berry-berry can go straight, so can I.

FINIS

In the summertime a family of Clevelanders will experience some distressing hot spells, but on the whole it is not a miserable season. Any extreme in the weather is apt to provoke trouble among persons who are sad to begin with. But as far as contented people are concerned, the mercury may do as it pleases without placing much real strain on the spirits.

And so it was for the Williamses of Seminary Street and their frequent visitor from Toledo. During this long and happy summer Echo O’Brien spent most of her weekends in Cleveland, and the three full weeks of her August vacation as well.

For her and for Berry-berry it became the summer of their romance. The love affair between these two was known to each member of the family; and its continuance was so fervent a wish in each of them that no one ever risked any direct mention of the possibility to either of the lovers: perhaps, as a thing of beauty, it seemed too fragile to meddle with at all.