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A Note from Aunt Phebe

Dear Billy, —

When you get as far as choosing partners, there's a word I want to say to you, though, as you're a pretty good dispositioned boy, maybe there's no need; still you may not always think, so 'twill do no harm to say it. There are always some girls that don't dance quite so well, or don't look quite so well, or don't dress quite so well, or are not liked quite so well, or are not quite so much acquainted. Now I don't want you to all the time, but sometimes, say once in an evening, I want you to pick out one of these for your partner. I know 't isn't the way boys do. But you can. Suppose you don't have a good time that one dance. You weren't sent into the world to have a good time every minute of your life! How would you like to sit still all the evening? I've been spectator at such times, and I've seen how things go on! Why, if boys would be more thoughtful, every girl might have a good time, besides doing the boys good to think of something besides their own comfort. If I were you I wouldn't try to make fun, but try to learn, for though your father was willing you should go, and wants to do everything he can for you, he has to work hard for his money. Lucy Maria is waiting to hear how you get on.

Your affectionate

Aunt Phebe.

William Henry to Lucy Maria

Dear Cousin, —

I was going to write to you before, how I was getting along, but have had to study very hard. We've been five times. The girls wear slippers and brown boots and other colors, and white dresses and blue and all kinds, and long ribbons, and a good many pretty girls go. If girls didn't go, I should like to go better. I mean till we know how, for I'd rather make mistakes when only boys were looking. And I make a good many, because he says I don't have time and tune. He says my feet come down sometimes right square athwart the time. So I watched the rest, and when they put their feet down, I did mine. But that was a stroke too late, he said. Said "time and tune waits for no man." I like to promenade, because a feller can go it some then. We learn all kinds of waltzes and redowas and polkas. I can polka with one that knows how. Whirling round makes me light-headed just as Grandmother said. But I get over it some. We are going to do the German at the last of it. The worst of it is cutting across the room to get your partners. He calls out when we're all standing up in two rows, "First gentleman take the first lady!" Now, supposing I'm first gentleman, I have to go way across to first lady with all of 'em looking, and fix my feet right way, one heel in the other hollow, and then make my bow, and then she has to make that kind of kneeling-down bow that girls do, and then we wait till all of 'em get across one by one. Then we take the step a little while, and then launch off round the hall, polking, or else get into quadrilles. And if we do we make graces to the partners and the corners. I like quadrilles best, because you can hop round some and have a good time, if you have a good partner. You can dance good deal better with a good partner. Last time I had that one the fellers call "real estate," because you can't move her she don't ever get ready to start, and when 't is time to turn stands still as a post.

Dorry and I practise going across after partners, up in our room. You ought to 've seen us yesterday! Dorry was the lady. If he didn't look funny! He fixed the table-cloth off the entry table, to make it look like his mother's opera-cape, and fastened a great sponge on for a waterfall, and fizzled out his hair, and had a little tidy on top his head, and that red bow you sent me right in front of it. Then he stood out by the window, and kept looking at his opera-cape, and smoothing it down, and poking his hair, and holding his handkerchief, the way girls do, and kept whispering, or making believe, to Bubby Short, the way girls do. Then I went across and made my bow, and he made that kneeling-down bow, and then we tried to polka redowa, but our boots tripped us up, and we couldn't stand up, and laughed so we tumbled down, and didn't hear anybody coming till he knocked, and 't was the teacher, come to see what the matter was. Not Wedding Cake, but Old Brown Bread, and he said dancing mustn't be brought into our studies, and scolded more, but I saw his eyes laughing, looking at Dorry. One of the boys tumbled down stairs, doing the graces in the entry, too near the edge, and it's forbidden now. Some of the first-class fellers put up a notice one night in the entry, great printed letters.

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 her thumbs 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 That to isn't left out in the notice, it's my own mistake.

-

The remaining letters were probably written during his last term at the school.

Matilda's Letter to William Henry

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 she believes 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, the one 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 a rotten 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, and father'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.

A Note from Dorry

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 sail
In the gentle gale,
On the waters blue,
And catch cod-fish
That 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 know
That 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.

Aunt Phebe's Note

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 of no 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 their father 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."

Lucy Maria to William Henry

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 starched things, 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.

SONG

A 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 toll
Going 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 the rumination and 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 the publicans? 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 brushes in '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 all celebrated," said Tommy. And the houses all gloomed up! 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 any minute, 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 make company 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 you bawled.

-

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.