From your affectionate Cousin,
Lucy Maria.
I was very sorry not to be able to attend the wedding. My present was half a dozen holders. The woman with whom I board said I couldn’t give a bride anything more useful. Her little daughter made them for me, at the rate of two cents apiece. They were an inch wide, and all had loops at the corners.
A Note from Uncle Jacob.
How are you, young man?
I am very glad you go to dancing-school. Boys, as a general thing, are too fond of study, and ’t is a good plan to have some contrivance to take their minds off their books. I suppose you’d like to know what is going on here at home. Your grandmother sits by the fire knitting some mittens for you to lose, so be sure you do it. [She says, tell him to be sure when he goes to dancing-school to wear his overcoat.] Your aunt Phebe is making jelly tarts. Says I can’t have any till meal-time. [Tell him to be sure and get cooled off some before he comes away.] Your grandmother can’t help worrying about that dancing-school. Matilda is picking over raisins for the pies. She won’t sit very close to me. Now Tommy has come in, crying with cold hands. Lucy Maria is soaking them in cold water. I don’t doubt he’ll get a tart. Yes, he has. First he cries, and then he takes a bite. [Tell him not to go and come in his slippers.] Aunt Phebe says, “Now there’s William Henry growing up, you ought to give him some advice.” But I tell her that a boy almost in his teens knows himself what’s right and what’s wrong. Now Georgiana has come in crying. Says she stepped her foot through a puddle of ice. Grandmother has set her up to dry her foot. Now she’ll get a tart, I suppose! Yes she has. [Tell him to look right at the teacher’s feet.] That’s good advice if you expect to learn how. Now your aunt says I’m such a good boy to write letters she’s going to give me this one that’s burnt on the edge. [Tell him to brush his clothes and not go linty.] More good advice. I guess now I’ve got the tart I won’t write any more. Of course we expect you to do just about right. If you neglect your studies and so waste your father’s money, you’ll be an ungrateful scamp. If you get into any contemptible mean ways, we shall be ashamed to own you. Do you mean to do anything or be anything now or ever? If you do, ’t is time you were thinking about it.
Uncle Jacob.
All between the brackets are messages from your grandmother.
J. U.