This is the account you asked me for, of all I’ve bought this week:—
| Slippery elm | 1 cent. |
| Corn-ball | 1 cent. |
| Gum | 1 cent. |
And I swapped a whip-lash that I found for an orange that only had one suck sucked out of it. The “Two Betseys,” they keep very good things to sell. They are two old women that live in a little hut with two rooms to it, and a ladder to go up stairs by, through a hole in the wall. One Betsey, she is lame and keeps still, and sells the things to us sitting down. The other Betsey, she can run, and keeps a yardstick to drive away boys with. For they have apple-trees in their garden. But she never touches a boy, if she does catch him. They have hens and sell eggs.
The boys that sleep in the same room that we do wanted Benjie and me to join together with them to buy a great confectioner’s frosted cake, and other things. And when the lamps had been blown out, to keep awake and light them up again, and so have a supper late at night, with the curtains all down and the blinds shut up, when people were in bed, and not let anybody know.
But Benjie hadn’t any money. Because his father works hard for his living,—but his uncle pays for his schooling,—and he wouldn’t if he had. And I said I wouldn’t do anything so deceitful. And the more they said you must and you shall, the more I said I wouldn’t and I shouldn’t, and the money should blow up first.
So they called me “Old Stingy” and “Pepper-corn” and “Speckled Potatoes.” Said they’d pull my hair if ’t weren’t for burning their fingers. Dorry was the maddest one. Said he guessed my hair was tired of standing up, and wanted to lie down to rest.
I wish you would please send me a new comb, for the large end of mine has got all but five of the teeth broken out, and the small end can’t get through. I can’t get it cut because the barber has raised his price. Send quite a stout one.
I have lost two of my pocket-handkerchiefs, and another one went up on Dorry’s kite, and blew away.