NO ADMITTANCE TO THE GRACES
That owl stands for Minerva. I couldn’t make a very good one because I’m in such a hurry to do my examples. The goddess of wisdom used to be named Minerva. She was painted with an owl. I’ve been reading it in the Classical Dictionary. Dorry and Bubby Short and I have just been to the Two Betseys to get our gloves sewed up, and the Other Betsey said she used to dance like a top. Then she held her dress up with herthumbs and fingers, and took four different kinds of balances. Made us die a laughing, she hopped up and down so.
Your affectionate Cousin,William Henry.
P. S Thattoisn’t left out in the notice, it’s my own mistake.
The remaining letters were probably written during his last term at the school.
Dear Cousin,—
Lucy Maria keeps telling me that I promised to write you a letter, but I wish I hadn’t promised to write you one, because I don’t like to write letters very well, for I can’t think of anything to write. But Lucy Maria she likes to, and that would do just as well as for me to. But mother says I ought to often, so as to get me in the habit of it. I don’t have very much time to write very long letters, for the girls are getting up a Fair, and I am helping do the old woman in her shoe, and gentlemen’s pincushions, and presents for the arrow table, where the arrow swings round and points to your present, and so I don’t get very much time between schools. For we have to write compositions every week now, and all the girls think the teacher is just as mean as he can be to make us. We want he should take off some of the compositions and put more on to our other lessons; but no. He thinks ’t is the best thing we can do. He don’t care about anything else, I believe. Susie Snow says shebelieves he’s all made up of composition. Our next subject is “Economy” and we’ve got to put in time wasted, and health wasted, and money wasted. Susie Snow is going to put in hers that girls should never waste their time writing compositions.
I wish I could think of some news to tell. Lucy Maria could get news in a sandy desert, I believe. But she don’t have to go to school. Hannah Jane hasn’t got home from Aunt Matilda’s yet. The minister and his wife and all his children have been here to spend the day. They are very fond of jelly. Mother gave them that tall gilt tumbler full, that Cousin Joe brought home from sea, with gilt flowers on it. ’T is very pleasant weather. I wish you’d come back and hoe my flower-garden, the weeds are thick as spatters, and I don’t have much time. The dog stepped on my sensitive plant. Some of my seeds haven’t come up. Father says I better go down after them. That Root of Bliss I set out, good for the headache, that Cousin Joe brought home from the island of Sumatra, that’s in the Mediterranean Sea, or else in the Indian Ocean, the hens scratched up four times, and I’ve brought it in the house and stuck it in a cigar-box. Father told me to shake pepper over it because ’t was used to pepper at home, but I can’t tell what he means and what he don’t, he funs so. Our new cow hooks down rails and goes where she wants to.
O Billy! now I can tell you some news. But ’t is quite bad news. It happened two weeks ago. We all felt very sorry about it, and some of us cried. I couldn’t help it. You know our cow that was named Reddie, theone we raised up from a bossy-calf with milk-porridge till ’t was big enough to eat grass? Well, she got in the bog. We were just eating supper. Georgiana was eating supper at our house that night. Tommy hadn’t got home from school, and we were all wondering where he was. Father said he didn’t doubt he’d gone to find his turtle. He had a turtle that got loose and ran away. Mother was just saying he’d have to have cold dip toast for his supper, for she makes it a rule not to keep things about for him when he don’t come straight home to his meals. He’d rather play than eat. ’T is only a little school he goes to. Not very far off. Five scholars, that’s all. Little bits of ones. But I must tell about our cow.
We began to hear a great screaming, and couldn’t think what the matter was. ’T was Tommy. And next thing he came running through the yard, crying and hollering both together, “Father! Father! Cow! Reddie!” Much as he could do to speak. Father knew in a minute what ’t was, for he knew she was pastured close to the bog, and he ran and we all ran, and Mr. Snow and some other men that found it out came with us. O poor cow! She was in more than half way up, and making dreadful moaning noises, and shook her head and tried to stir, but every stir made her go deeper in. Men and boys waded in, but they couldn’t do anything.
“Rails! rails!” they all called out, and we pulled them out of the fences and they tried to prise her up with them, but the bog was so soft she sank in so they couldn’t do anything with her. Much as they could do to keep up themselves. Mr. Snow was prising with arotten rail, and it broke, and he went down in the wet. Old Mr. Slade, that goes with two canes, came there bareheaded and sat down on the bank. He told them to go get some boards. There weren’t any, any nearer than Mr. John Slade’s new house, and that was too far off, and father said ’t was too late, for she was in, then, up to the top of her back. ’Most all the women and girls came away then, for we couldn’t bear to stay any longer to see her suffer. She kept her nose pointed up high as she could, and her eyes looked very mournful.
In the morning father told me I should never see Reddie again. They got her up, but not soon enough. She’s buried now, under the poplar-tree, in that field we bought of Mr. Snow. She was a good, gentle cow, and seemed to know us. Mother says she seemed like one of the family. Georgiana about spoiled her new boots in the bog. Our new cow isn’t the best breed, but she’s part best. The cream is considerable yellow, but not very. She gives about eight or nine quarts. Milk has risen a cent. Mother declares she will not measure her milk in that new kind of quart, that don’t hold much over a pint. Lucy Maria and all of us are trying to have mother go get her picture taken. But she says she can’t screw her courage up, and can’t take the time. Your father says he wants to see her good clever face in a picture. Too bad blue eyes take light. But she might be taken looking down, Lucy Maria says, mending Tommy’s trousers, that would be natural. He’s always making barn-doors in his trousers, he’s such a climbing fellow.
L. M. and I have most earned money enough, andfather’s going to make up the rest, and we are going to hire a cheap piano, that Mr. Fry told us about, and I’m going to be a music teacher, I guess. I’m going to begin next month. I shall take of Miss Ashley. I shall have to walk a mile. O goody! goody! dum, dum, dum! Sha’ n’t I be glad! But Susie Snow says I shall sing another tune after I’ve taken a little while. Father says if I begin to take I must go through. Says I must promise to practise two hours a day. I’d just as soon promise that as not. ’T is just what I like. Only think, I shall have a piano in this very house. Seems if I couldn’t believe it! I can play for you to dance. Wish I knew how to dance. Susie Snow has come after me to go take a walk. Now, William Henry, you must answer this letter just as immediately as possible.
From your affectionate Cousin,Matilda.
P. S. Cousin Joe has sent me a smelling-bottle, a little gilt one he brought home, that’s got ninety-four different smells in it. Mother is writing you a note. She says you can’t dance on her carpet. Father says he’s sorry he didn’t learn the graces, and means to when you come again. We can dance in the barn. Tommy has just come in. He says he knows his B A C’s. He’s a funny boy. He means A B C’s. But he always gets the horse before the cart. One day we tried to make conundrums, and Georgiana made this,—see if you can answer it: Which is best, to have plum-cake for supper and only have a little mite of a piece, or cookies, and have as many as you want?
Georgiana’s kitty has just jumped over the fence. She’s after my morning-glories again. Just as fast as I fasten ’em up, she goes to playing with the strings and claws ’em down again. Lucy Maria drew a picture of her doing it.
M.
Dear William Henry’s Grandmother,—
William Henry wants I should tell you not to be scared when you see another boy’s handwriting on the back of this letter, and not to think he’s got cold, or got anything else, like measles, or anything of that kind, and not to feel worried about his not writing for so long, for he is all right except the first joint of his forefinger. He crooked that joint, or else uncrooked it, playing base ball. ’T was a heavy ball and he took it whole on that joint, and ’t is so stiff he can’t handle a penholder. He thinks you will all wonder why he doesn’t write, and worry about his getting sick or something, but he never felt better. Appetite very good. He has received his cousin Matilda’s letter, and will answer it when he can. He wants to know what she’d think if she had to write poetry for composition. Our teacher told us we must each write one verse about June. I put three of them in for you to see, but don’t put our names.
“O I love the verdant June,When the birds are all in tune,When the rowers go out to row,When the mowers go out to mow,O, sweetly smells the fragrant hay,As we ride on the load and stow it away.”“In June we can sailIn the gentle gale,On the waters blue,And catch cod-fishThat make a good dish,And mackerel too.”“In June the summer skies are clear,And soon green apples do appear.And though they’re hard and sour, we knowThat every day they’ll better grow.This teaches us that boys, also,Every day should better grow.”
“O I love the verdant June,When the birds are all in tune,When the rowers go out to row,When the mowers go out to mow,O, sweetly smells the fragrant hay,As we ride on the load and stow it away.”
“In June we can sailIn the gentle gale,On the waters blue,And catch cod-fishThat make a good dish,And mackerel too.”
“In June the summer skies are clear,And soon green apples do appear.And though they’re hard and sour, we knowThat every day they’ll better grow.This teaches us that boys, also,Every day should better grow.”
P. S. He wants I should tell you ’t is tied up in a rag all right and don’t hinder his studying. Says he wishes his cousin Lucy Maria would write him one of her kind of letters, that she knows how to write, and tell what they are all doing and what they talk about, and when his finger is well he will answer all the letters they will write to him.
Very respectfully,Billy’s Friend, Dorry.
My dear Billy,—
Grandmother worries about that finger. Do ask Dorry to write again, or else take the penholder in your middle one, though we mistrust that’s damaged, or you’d have written before this. I’ve had my picture taken and send you one to keep. Look at it often, and if you’ve done anything wrong, think it shakes its head at you! Little wrong things, or big ones, all the same. For little wrongs are more dangerous, because we think they’re ofno account. But they show what’s in a person, same as a little pattern of goods tells what the whole piece is. Show me half an inch of cotton and I’ll tell you what color the whole spool is.
I’d no idea of having my picture taken. I was right in the heart of baking, when your Uncle J. drove up and said he’d harnessed up on purpose. ’T was all a contrived plan between him and the girls. I saw them smiling together when Mattie brought out my black alpaca. I thought the girls seemed mighty ready to take hold and finish up the baking. But he got caught in his own trap, for Lucy Maria went with us, to make sure my collar and things looked fit to be taken, and she set her foot down we shouldn’t leave the saloon till he’d had his, for she was going to have a locket with us both inside, and I had to be done over small. What an operation it is to have your picture taken! If we could only take ether and be carried through! He put my head in a clamp, and crossed my hands, and pinned up a black rag for me to look at, and told me to look easy and natural, and smile a very little! I’m sure I tried to, but your Uncle J. says ’t is a very melancholy face, and Lucy Maria says the cheek-bones cast a shadow! Your father says the worst of it is, it does look like me! I think it’s too bad to make fun of it, after all I passed through! Your Uncle J. took things easy and joked with the man, and was laughing when the cover was taken off and didn’t dare to unlaugh, he says, so he came out all right, with a laughing face, as he always is. The girls want we should be taken large and hang up, side by side, in two oval frames, over the mantel-piece. But theirfather says he sha’ n’t be hung up alive, if he can help himself.
It isn’t likely I shall write to you again very soon. Cousin Joe and his accordion are coming, and he’ll bring his sisters, and the young folks about here know them, and I expect there’ll be nothing but frolicking. Then there’ll be some of your Uncle J.’s folks after that, so you see we’ll be all in a hubbub and I shall have to be the very hub of the hubbub, I suppose. Lucy Maria says, “Tell William Henry to send us a charade, or something to amuse the company with.” Write when you can.
With a great deal of love, your affectionate
Aunt Phebe.
P. S. Take good care of your finger. A finger-joint would be a great loss. I think cold water is as good as anything. Grandmother wishes you had some of her carrot salve. Let us hear from you in some way. Grandmother wants to know if the Two Betseys don’t make carrot salve.
I must add here that Lucy Maria was not the girl to give up those pictures in “two oval frames.” For by perseverance, and partly with my assistance, the thing was secretly managed, and managed so well that Uncle Jacob actually carried them out home himself, in a bundle to Lucy Maria, without knowing it! And they now hang in triumph over the fireplace in the “girls’ chamber.”
Dear Billy,—
’T is a pity about that forefinger. Pray get it well enough to handle a pen, ’t is so long since you’ve written.So you want home matters reported. Eatable matters of course will be most interesting. Milk and butter, plenty. Gingerbread (plain), ditto. Gingerbread (fancy), scarce. Cookies, quiet. Plum-cake, in demand. Snaps, lively. Brown-bread, firm. White-bread (sliced), dull. Biscuits (hot), brisk. Custard, unsteady. Preserves not in the market.
What do we do, and what do we talk about? Why, we talk about our cousin William Henry, and what we do can’t be told within the bounds of one letter. Think of seven cows’ milk to churn into butter, besides a cheese now and then, and besides working for the extra hands we hire this time o’ year! I should have written to you before, when we first heard of your accident, if I could have got the time. Hannah Jane is away, and we’ve let Mattie go with Susie Snow to Grandma Snow’s again for a few days. Grandma Snow likes to have Mattie come with Susie, for ’t is rather a still, dull place. So you must think we are quite lonesome here now, and we are, especially mother. Father tells her she’d better advertise for a companion. I’ve a good mind to advertise to be a companion. What do companions do? The old lady might be cross, or the old gentleman, but that wouldn’t hurt me, so long as I kept clever myself. Don’t doubt I’d get fun out of it some way. There’s fun in about everything I think.
I’ve been trying to get father and mother to go to Aunt Lucy’s and stay all night. But father thinks there wouldn’t be anybody to shut the barn-door, and mother thinks there wouldn’t be anybody to do anything, though I’ve promised to scald the pans, and do up the starchedthings, and keep Tommy out of the sugar-bowl. He takes a lump every chance he can get. Takes after his father. Father puts sugar on sweetened puddings, if mother isn’t looking! We’ve made some verses to plague Tommy, and when Mattie gets her piano, they’re going to be set to music.
As turns the needle to the pole,So Tommy to the sugar-bowl.Tra la la, tra la la!Sweet, sweet Tommy!Tommy always takes a tollGoing by the sugar-bowl.Tra la la, tra la la!Sweet, sweet Tommy!Were Tommy blind as any mole,He’d always find the sugar-bowl.Tra la la, tra la la!Sweet, sweet Tommy!
As turns the needle to the pole,So Tommy to the sugar-bowl.Tra la la, tra la la!Sweet, sweet Tommy!
Tommy always takes a tollGoing by the sugar-bowl.Tra la la, tra la la!Sweet, sweet Tommy!
Were Tommy blind as any mole,He’d always find the sugar-bowl.Tra la la, tra la la!Sweet, sweet Tommy!
He’s a funny talking fellow. We took him into town last night, to see the illumination. This morning we heard him and Frankie Snow telling Benny Joyce about it. Father and I were listening behind the blinds. Made father’s eyes twinkle. Don’t you know how they twinkle when he’s tickled?
“You didn’t see theruminationand we did!” we heard Tommy say.
“Rumination? What’s a rumination?” asked Benny.
“O hoo! hoo!” cried Tommy. “Denno what a rumination is!”
“Why,” said Frankie, “don’t you know thepublicans? Wal, that’s it.”
“O poh!” said Benny. “Publicans and sinners! I knew they’s coming!”
“And soldiers!” said Frankie. “O my! All a marching together!”
“O poh!” said Benny. “I see ’em go by. Paint-pots on their heads, and brushesin’em! I wasn’t goin’ to chase!”
“Guess nobody wouldn’t let ye?” said Frankie.
“Didn’t either!” cried Tommy, “didn’t have paint-pots!”
“Did!” said Benny. “Guess my great brother knows!”
“Guess we know,” said Frankie, “when we went!”
“And the town was allcelebrated,” said Tommy. And the houses allgloomedup! And horses! O my!
“O poh!” said Benny. “When I grow up, I’m goin’ to have a span!”
If mother does go, she’ll take Tommy, for she wouldn’t sleep a wink away from him over night. Father pretends he’d go if he had a handsome span. Says he hasn’t got a horse in the barn good enough to take mother out riding. When Mammy Sarah was here washing, she told him how he could get a good span. You know he’s always joking about taking summer boarders. Says Mammy Sarah, “Now ’t is a wonder to me you don’t do it, for summer boarders is as good as a gold-mine. Money runs right out of their pockets, and all you have to do is to catch it.” She says we could make enough out of a couple of them, in a month’s time, to buy a handsome span, and she isn’t sure but the harness.
I think we begin to be a little in earnest about summer boarders. For we have rooms enough, in both houses together, and milk and vegetables, and mother’s a splendid cook. Mammy Sarah says, “They ain’t diffikilt, and after they’ve been in the country couple of weeks, they don’t eat so very much more than other folks.”
Father says he wants to take them more for the entertainment than the money. He wants rich ones, but not the sensible kind, that know money isn’t the only thing worth having. Says what he wants is that silly, stuck-up kind, that put on airs, and make fools of themselves, they’d be so amusing! Thinks the best sort for our use would be specimens that went up quite sudden from poor to rich, like balloons, all filled with gas. I believe there’d be lots of fun to be made out of them. I’ve seen one or two. Gracious! You’d think they weren’t born on the same planet with poor folks. Mother’d rather have the really well-informed, sensible kind, that we may learn something from them. A couple of each would be just the thing. How do you like mother’s picture? We don’t feel at all satisfied with it. If she could only be taken at home! Then she’d look natural. Father says the world is going ahead so fast, he believes the time will come when every family will have its own picture-machine, much as it has its own frying-pan. Then when folks have on their best expressions, why, clap it right before them. Then they’ll look homish. Says what he wants is to have mother’s face when she’s just made a batch of uncommon light biscuits, or when Tommy’s said something smart. Won’t there be funny pictures when we can hold up a machine before anybody anyminute, like a frying-pan, and catch faces glad, or mad, or sad, or any way? I made believe take Tommy’s and then showed them to him on a piece of paper. Guess I’ll put them in the letter. They’ll do to amuse you. I draw an hour or so every day. First, I have to make my hour. Sometimes I have to make more. For I will read a little, if the world stops because of it. But about the faces. First one is when he was crying because he couldn’t have sugar on his potatoes. Next one is when he was spunky at Frankie Snow for bursting his little red balloon. The pleased-looking face is when father brought him home a little ship all rigged, and the laughing one is when the cow put her head in the window. We tell him we’ll have them framed and hung up so he can see just how he looks. Mother says ’t is all very well to laugh at Tommy, but she guesses some older ones’ pictures wouldn’t always look smiling and pleasant, take them the year through!
As soon as your finger is itself again do write, for we miss your letters. We expect to have gay times here this summer. Company coming, but we sha’ n’t makecompany of them. Except to have splendid times. What shall we do evenings? If you go anywhere where there is anything going on, do write us about it, so we can go on the same way. When are you coming? Write me a good long letter when you can.
Your affectionate Cousin,Lucy Maria.
Your father is going to write you a letter. Quite wonderful for him. O William Henry, you don’t know how much I think of your father, and what a good man he is! I guess you’d better write to your grandmother before you do me; she’s so pleased to have you write to her.
Father wants to know when that ball hit you if youbawled.
Lucy Maria’s “picture-taker” made a great deal of fun for them, and possibly did some good. She constructed a queer long-handled affair, and, at the most unexpected moments, this would be thrust before the faces of different members of the family, more especially Tommy, Matilda, or Georgiana, and their “pictures” would be sure to appear to them soon after, “glad, or mad, or sad, or any way.”
And the plan of “summer boarders” also furnished entertainment. The talk on this subject was quite amusing, particularly when it touched the subject of “advertising.” Lucy Maria suggested this ending:—
“None but the silly, or the really well-informed need apply.” But Mr. Carver thought such a notice would fail of bringing a single boarder. For silly people did not know they were silly, and the really well-informed were the very last ones to think themselves so.
Dear Aunt Phebe,—
I thank you for taking your time to write to me, when you have so much work to do. My forefinger has about recovered the use of itself. The middle one did go lame a spell, but now ’t is very well, I thank you. Mrs. Wedding Cake did them up for me. I think she’s a very kind woman. Dorry says he’d put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes, or lay down his life, if she wanted him to, or anything else, for the only woman he knows that will smile on boys’ mud and on boys’ noise.
Ten of us went on an excursion with the teacher, half-price, to Boston, and had a long ride in the cars, over forty miles. We went everywhere, and saw lots of things. Went into the Natural History building. You can go in for nothing. You stand on the floor, at the bottom and look way up to the top. All round inside are galleries running round, with alcoves letting out of them, where they keep all sorts of unknown beasts and birds and bugs and snakes. Some of those great birds are regular smashers! ’Most dazzles your eyes to look at their feathers, they’re such bright red! I’d just give a guess how tall they were, but don’t believe I’d come within a foot or two. Also butterflies of every kind, besides skeletons of monkeys and children and minerals and all kinds of grasses and seeds, and nuts there such as you never cracked or thought of! They are there because they are seeds, not because they are nuts. And there’s a cast of a great ugly monster, big as several elephants, that used to walk round the earth before any men lived in it. If he wasn’t a ripper! Could leave his hind feet on theground and put his fore paws up in the trees and eat the tops off! They call him a Megotharium! I hope he’s spelt right, though he ought not to expect it, and I don’t know as it makes much difference, seeing he lived thousands of years before the flood, and lucky he did, Dorry says, for the old ark couldn’t have floated with many of that sort aboard. He wasn’t named till long after he was dead and buried. Patient waiter is no loser, Dorry says, for he’s got more name than the ones that live now, and is taken more notice of. We saw a cannon-ball on the side of Brattle Street Church, where ’t was fired in the Revolution, and we went to the top of the State House. Made our knees ache going up so many steps, but it pays. For you can look all over the harbor, and all round the country, and see the white towns, and steeples, for miles and miles. Boston was built on three hills and the State House is on one of them. I can’t write any more, now.
W. B. has left school, because his father got a place for him in New York. His father thought he was old enough to begin. He’s a good deal older than I am.
From your affectionate Nephew,William Henry.
How do you like this picture of that great Mego—I won’t try to spell him again—eating off the tree-tops? The leaves on the trees then were different from the ones we have now. Dorry made the leaves, and I made the creature.
My dear Son,—
Perhaps you have thought that because I am rather a silent man, and do not very often write you a letter, that I have not very much feeling and do not take interest in you. But no one knows how closely I am watching my boy as Time is bringing him up from boyhood to manhood.
Sometimes your grandmother worries about your being where there may be bad boys; but I tell her that among so many there must be both good and bad, and if you choose the bad you show very poor judgment. I think if a boy picks out bad companions it shows there is something bad in himself.
She says I ought to keep giving you good advice, now you are just starting in life, and charge you to be honest and truthful and so forth. I tell her that would be something as it would be if you were just starting on a pleasant journey, and I should say, “Now, William Henry, don’t put out your own eyes at the beginning, or cut the cords of your legs!” Do you see what I mean? A boy that isnothonest and truthful puts out his own eyes and cripples himself at the very beginning.
There is a good deal said about arriving at honor and distinction. I don’t want you to think aboutarrivingat honor. I want you to take honor to start with. And asfor distinction, a man, in the long run, is never distinguished for anything but what he really is. So make up your mind just what you want to pass for, and be it. For you will pass for what you are, not what you try to appear. Go into the woods and see how easily you can tell one tree from another. You see oak leaves on one, and you know that is oak all the way through. You see pine needles on another, and you know that is pine all the way through. A pine-tree may want to look like an oak, and try to look like an oak, and think it does look like an oak, as it can’t see itself. But nobody is cheated. So a rascally fellow may want to appear fair and honest, and try to appear fair and honest, and think he does appear fair and honest, as he can’t see himself. But, in the long run, nobody is cheated. For you can read a man’s character about as easy as you can the leaves on the trees. Sometimes I sit down in a grocery store and hear the neighbors talked about, and ’t is curious to find how well everybody is known. It seems as if every man walked round, labelled, as you may say, same as preserve jars are labelled, currant, quince, &c. Only he don’t know what his label is. Just as likely as not a man may think his label is Quince Marmelade, when ’t is only Pickled String Beans!
Just so with boys. Grown folks notice boys a great deal, though when I was a boy, I never knew they did. The little affairs of play-time and school-time, and their home-ways are all talked over, and by the time a boy is twelve years old, it is pretty well known what sort of a man he will make.
Now don’t mistake my meaning. I don’t want you tobe true because people will know it if you are not, but because it is right and noble to be so. I want you to be able to respect yourself. Never do anything that you like yourself any the less for doing.
A boy of your age is old enough to be looking ahead some, to see what he is aiming at. I don’t suppose you want to drift, like the sea-weed, that lodges wherever the waves toss it up! Set up your mark, and a good high one. And be sure and remember that, as a general thing, there is no such thing as luck. If a man seems to be a lucky merchant, or lawyer, or anything else, ’t is because he has the talent, the industry, the determined will, that make him so. People see the luck, but they don’t always see the “taking pains” that’s behind it. I remember you wrote us a letter once, and spoke of a nice house, with nice things inside, that you meant to have by “trying hard enough.” There’s a good deal in that. We’ve got to try hard, and try long, and try often, and try again, and keep trying. That house never’ll come down to you. You’ve got to climb up to it, step by step. I don’t know as I have anything to say about the folly of riches. On the contrary, I think ’t is a very good plan to have money enough to buy books and other things worth having. I don’t see why a man can’t be getting knowledge and growing better, at the same time he is growing richer. Some poor folks have a prejudice against rich folks. I haven’t any. Rich people have follies, but poor people copy them if they can. That is to say, we often see poor people making as big fools of themselves as they can, with the means they have. Money won’t hurt you, Billy, so long as you keep common sense and a true heart.
We are all watching you and thinking of you, here at home. If youshouldgo wrong ’t would be a sad blow for both families. Perhaps I ought to tell you how I feel towards you, and how, ever since your mother’s death, my heart has been bound up in you and Georgie. You would then know what a crushing thing it would be to me if you were found wanting in principle. But I am not very good, either at talking or writing, so do remember, dear boy, that even when I don’t say a word, I’m thinking about you and loving you always. God bless you!
From your affectionateFather.
W. B., it seems, from his own account, set sail on the great sea of commerce with flying colors, and favorable winds,—probably the Trade-winds.
Dear Friend,—
I like my place, and think it is a very excellent one. It is “Veazey & Summ’s.” When you get a place it is my advice that you should procure one in New York, as New York is greatly superior to Boston. Boston is a one-horse place. I wouldn’t be seen riding in that slow coach. Washington Street could be put whole into Broadway, and not know it was there hardly, for you could travel both sides and all round it. Our store is a very excellent store. Some consider it greatly superior to Stewart’s. All our clerks dress in very superior style and go in very good society, and so I learn to use very good language. We keep boys to do the errands, and porters. All thestylish people do their trading here. The young ladies like to trade with me very much. The New York ladies are greatly superior to any other ladies. The firm think a great deal of me, so I expect to be promoted quite fast. I am learning to smoke. I have got a very handsome pipe. The head clerk thinks it has got a very superior finish to it. We two are quite thick. How are all the fellers? Write soon. Remember me to all inquiring friends, and excuse handwriting.
Your friend,Walter Briesden.
Dear Cousin,—
Now I’m going to answer your letter, and then I sha’ n’t have to think about it any longer. I was sorry to hear about poor Reddie. But if it had been Tommy, then it would have been a great deal worse. Think of that. Dorry and I have been wishing ’most a week about something, and now I’ll tell you what ’t is about. About a party. ’T is going to be at Colonel Grey’s. He lives in a large light-colored brick house, with a piazza round it, and a fountain, and bronze dogs, and everything lovely. It is Maud Grey’s birthday party. Sixteen years old. Old and young are going to be invited, because her little sister’s birthday comes next day to hers. Now sometimes when there’s a party some of the biggest of our fellows get invited, because there are not very many young gentlemen in town, and they are glad to take some from the school. But we two never have yet. But Dorry thinks we stand a better chance now, for we’ve been to dancing-school,and will do to fill up sets with. Maud Grey didn’t go as a scholar, but she went spectator sometimes, and took my partner’s place once, when her string of beads broke. Dorry was in the same set. I never polkaed better in my life, for she took me round and made me keep time whether I wanted to or not, but I told Dorry I felt just like a little boy that had been lifted over a puddle. He’s afraid she won’t remember us, but I guess I’m afraid she will, and then won’t invite such a bad dancer. We two thought we’d walk by the house, just for fun, and make ourselves look tall. So we held up our chins, and swung two little canes we’d cut, going along, for small chaps are plenty enough, but young gentlemen go off to college, or stores, soon’s they’re of any size. The blinds were all shut up, but Dorry said there was hope if the slats were turned the right way. Blind slats here move all ways. Yesterday, in school-time, I saw a colored man coming towards the school-house, and thought ’t was Cicero, the one that works for Colonel Grey, coming with the invitations, and made a loud “hem!” for Dorry to look up, and a hiss, to mean Cicero, and pointed out doors. ’t wasn’t very loud, but that one we call Brown Bread, that has eyes in the back of his head, and ears all over him, and smells rat where there isn’t any, and wears slippers, so you can’t hear him, even if ’tis still enough to drop a pin,—I thought he was over the other side of the room, tending to his own affairs, but all of a sudden he was standing just back of me, and I had to lose a recess just for that. And ’t wasn’t Cicero after all, but the one that comes after the leavings.—(Somebody knocks.)
Afternoon.—Hurrah! We’re going! The one that knocked at the door was Spicey, with our invitations. When I come home I’ll bring them home to show. They came through the post-office. We expect they all came to the professor, with orders to pick out the ten tallest ones, for they are directed in his writing. I never went to such a party, and shouldn’t know how to behave, if ’t wasn’t for Dorry. First thing you do is to go up and speak to the lady of the house and the lady of the party. I mean after you’ve been up stairs, and looked in the looking-glass and smoothed down your hair. Mine always comes up again. I’ve tried water and I’ve tried oil, and I’ve tried beef-marrow, but ’t is bound to come up. Dorry says I ought to put it in a net. Don’t you remember that time I had my head shaved off close, and how it looked like an orange? I’m glad ’t isn’t so red as it was. ’T is considerable dark now. When you come down you walk up to the lady of the house and say “How do you do?” and shake hands, and when you go home you have to bid her good-night, and say you’ve had a very pleasant time, and shake hands again. Not shove out your fist, as if you were shoving a croquet-ball, but slow, with the fingers about straight, and not speak it out blunt, as if you were singing out “good-night!” to the fellers, but quite softly and smiling. Dorry’s been showing me beforehand. Bubby Short stood up in the floor, and had the bedspread tied round him with a cod-line, for a trail, and shavings for curls. He was the lady of the house and we walked up to him, and said, “How do you do, Mrs. Grey?” and so forth. Dorry drew this picture ofus. He draws better than I do. I will write about the party.
From your Cousin,William Henry.
My dear Grandmother,—
Now if you will be a good little grandmother, and promise never to worry any more, then I’ll tell you about that party. We had to wear white gloves. I’ll begin at the outside. The piazzas had colored lights hanging round them, and there were colored lights hung in the trees and the gateways. ’T was a foggy night, and those colored lights lighted up the fog all around, so when you came towards the place it looked just like a great bright spot in the midst of darkness. There was a tall lady, standing in the middle of the room, with a splendid dress on, dragging way behind her, and I went right up to her, and just got my foot the way Mr. Tornero told us, and the palm of my hand right, when Dorryjerked me back by my jacket and said she wasn’t the right one. You see we got belated, going back after our clean pocket-handkerchiefs, and hurried so that Dorry fell down and muddied his trousers’ knees, but lucky ’t was close to the Two Betseys’ shop, for we went in there and got sponged up, but we had to wait for ’em to dry. Lame Betsey said she used to take care of Maud Grey when she was a little scrap, and she wanted to make her a birthday present. So they both hunted round, to see if they had anything. In the desk they found a little thin book, a funny-looking old blue-covered book, “Advice to a Young Lady,” that was given to Lame Betsey when she was young. The title was on the blue cover. ’T was a funny-looking thing and it smelt snuffy. She asked me to give it to Maud, after she’d written her name in it. I tell you now Lame Betsey makes quite good letters! I didn’t want to take the book, but I did, for both Betseys are clever women.
All this was the reason we got belated, and Mrs. Grey had got mixed up with the other people, but we found her and did the right thing by her. And Maud too. I don’t think any of you would believe that I could behaveso well! so polite I mean. Course I didn’t feel bashful any! O no!
They had four pieces, and they played as if they knew how. I didn’t dance at the first of it. Didn’t dare to. ’T was too light there. The carpets were covered with white. Then chandeliers, and lamps, and wax candles, and flowers everywhere they could be, set up in vases,—one lady called vases, varzes,—and hanging-baskets. I never was in such a beautiful place. The ladies sang at the piano, and the young gentlemen turned their leaves over. O you ought to ’ve heard ’em when the tunes went up, up, up! Enough to make you catch your breath! Seemed as if it could never get down again. I don’t like that kind. But Dorry said ’twas opera style and nobody was to blame but me, if I didn’t like it. Now John Brown’s Body, I like that, and when they all sang that, I joined right in, same as any of them. For I knew I knew that tune. But first one looked round at me, and then another looked round at me, as if something was the matter. I thought I saw ’em smiling. Then I kept still. But I didn’t know I was singing wrong. O, I do wish I knew what this singing is! Seems easy enough. Now when the tune goes up loud, I go up loud, and when that goes down low, I go down low. But Dorry says it isn’t singing. Says ’tis discord. But I can’t tell discord from any other cord, and he says the harder I try, the worse noise I make. I do wish I could roar out that Glory Hallelujah! for I feel the tune inside of me, but it never comes out right. Dorry laughs when I set out to sing. He says I chase the tune up and down all the way through,and never hit it! Now, if ’t is right inside, why can’t it come out right? I don’t see!
We went into a large room to eat refreshments, and I wish Aunt Phebe could see the things we had. And taste of them too. I saved the frosting off my cake for Tommy. ’T is wrapped up in a paper in my trunk. ’T is different from your frosting, good deal harder. I had a sort of funny time in that room. Somebody had to hit my elbow when I was passing custard to a girl, and joggled over a mess of it on to her white dress and my trousers. I whipped out my pocket-handkerchief to sop it up, and whipped out that little blue book. Somebody picked it up, and one young man, that had been cutting up all the evening, Maud Grey’s cousin, he got hold of it and read her name and called out to her to come get her present, and made a good deal of fun about it, and began to read it loud. She wanted to know who brought it, and somebody told her I was the one. I began to grow red as fire, but all of a sudden I thought, Now, Billy, what’s the use? So I said very plain, “Miss Grey, Lame Betsey sent you that book.” She didn’t laugh very much, only smiled and asked me to tell Lame Betsey she was glad that she remembered her. Guess she thought I looked bashful, for afterwards she asked me if I wouldn’t try a polka with her. I don’t think she’s very proud, for when I was looking at a painted vase, she came and told me how it was done, for all I wasn’t much acquainted with her. She talked to me as easy and sociable as if she’d been Lucy Maria.
A company of us got together in one of the roomsand ate our ice-creams there, and while we were eating them, we beheaded words. Lucy Maria must read this letter, for she’ll want to know how. When you behead a word you take off the first letter. It’s fun, when you get beheading them fast. The spelling mustn’t be changed. Dorry made some of these. I didn’t. I couldn’t think fast enough.
Behead an article of dress, and you leave a farming tool.
Shoe—hoe.
I’ll put the rest of the answers at the bottom, so as to give all of you a chance to guess what they are.
1. Behead what leads men to fight, and you leave the cause of much misery, sin, and death.
2. Behead what young ladies are said to be fond of, and you leave a young lady.
3. Behead what comes nearest the hand, and you leave what comes nearest the heart.
4. Behead something sweet, and it leaves an address to the sweet.
5. Behead part of a coach, and you leave part of yourself. Behead that, and you leave a fish.
6. Behead a rogue, and you leave a musician.
7. Behead an old-fashioned occupation, and you leave what prevents many a parting.
8. Behead a part of ladies’ apparel, and you leave what is higher than the king.
9. Behead what always comes hard, and you leave what makes things go easy.
10. Behead a weapon, and you leave a fruit. Behead that, and you leave part of the body.