sub getLetter {
   # Let's start the buffer with an empty string to avoid
   # an "uninitialized" warning message.
   my $txline = "";
   my $letterfile = 'C:\Users\Carl\Documents\NewLetter.txt';
   open (INPUT1, $letterfile) or die ("Can't open file");
   while (my $line = <INPUT1>) {
      # Each time we read $line, we want to add it to the
      # end of $txline
      $txline = $txline . $line;
   }
   # *now* we have all the data we want in $txline, so we
   # can return it to the caller
   return $txline;
}