Mark Hartwell had been hard and defiant enough , but the prison officials told that he cried like a child over Grandma Sheldon 's little letter . `` There 's nobody all bad , '' says Grandma when she relates the story . `` I used to believe a murderer must be , but I know better now . I think of that poor man often and often . He was so kind and gentle to me -- he must have been a good boy once . I write him a letter every Christmas and I send him tracts and papers . He 's my own little charity . But I 've never been on the cars since and I never will be again . You never can tell what will happen to you or what sort of people you 'll meet if you trust yourself on a train . '' The Romance of Jedediah Jedediah was not a name that savoured of romance . His last name was Crane , which is little better . And it would be no use to call this story `` Mattie Adams 's Romance '' because Mattie Adams is not a romantic name either . But names have really nothing to do with romance . The most exciting and tragic affair I ever knew was between a man named Silas Putdammer and a woman named Kezia Cullen -- which has nothing to do with the present story . Jedediah , to all outward seeming , did not appear to be any more romantic than his name . He looked distinctly commonplace as he rode comfortably along the winding country road that was dreaming in the haze and sunshine of a midsummer afternoon . He was perched on the seat of a bright red pedlar 's wagon , above and behind a dusty , ambling , red pony of that peculiar gait and appearance pertaining to the ponies of country pedlars -- a certain placid , unhasting leanness , as of a nag that has encountered troubles of his own and has lived them down by sheer patience and staying power . From the bright red wagon proceeded a certain metallic rumbling and clinking as it bowled along , and two or three nests of tin pans on its flat rope-encircled top flashed back the light so dazzlingly that Jedediah seemed the beaming sun of a little planetary system all his own . A new broom sticking up aggressively at each of the four corners gave the wagon a resemblance to a triumphal chariot . Jedediah himself had not been in the tin-peddling business long enough to acquire the apologetic , out-at-elbows appearance which distinguishes a tin pedlar from other kinds of pedlars .
In fact , this was his maiden venture XXXXX this line ; hence he still looked plump and self-respecting .
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