In this view Grandma persisted . She never would say or listen to a word against Mark Hartwell , and she had only pity for him whom everyone else condemned . With her own trembling hands she wrote him a letter to accompany the money Samuel sent before Hartwell was taken to the penitentiary for life . She thanked him again for his kindness to her and assured him that she knew he was sorry for what he had done and that she would pray for him every night of her life . 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 XXXXX 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 .
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