To the Editor:

This will be my last letter before the weigh-in, as I have observed that a man who is still writing letters on the Thursday of fair week has run out of things to do in his garden.

I note that my neighbor's most recent letter contained no arithmetic, no measurements, and no reference to any cart. I take this as a sign of confidence and return the compliment: I have not measured anything since the first week of August. What is out there is out there. It has had the summer it has had — a wet June, a smoke week that I believe did more good than harm by keeping the sun off, and a warm dry stretch since that a person could not have ordered better. My father used to say the last three weeks are the only ones that count and the first fifteen are just insurance. He was wrong about several things and right about that.

On the notebook, which the Pilot-Independent continues to hold: I have not claimed it and will not. It is not mine to claim if a gentleman will not read another man's list, and I would not have a man read mine. I did note the paper's advertisement said it would go into the safe after the fair, with the good pencils, which strikes me as a suitable place for a document that has caused this much conversation while sitting still.

Saturday at ten, then. The scale is certified. My cart is the cart my father used and the gate is the width it has always been, and if the gate proves to be the wrong width, that will be an interesting morning and I will say so in this space. Nine pounds is a figure with a birthday coming. We shall see whose birthday.

C. BjornstadRural Misquah