Father laughs to hear about Old Wonder Boy, and he says a bragger ought to be laughed at, and bragging is a bad thing. But he don’t want you to pick out all the bad things about a boy to send home in your letters; says next time you must send home a good thing about him, because he thinks every boy you see has some good things as well as some bad things.
A dear little baby has moved in the house next to our house. It lets me hold her, and its mother lets me drag her out. It’s got little bits of toes, and it’s got a little bit of a nose, and it says “Da da! da da! da da!” And when I was dragging her out, the wheel went over a poor little butterfly, but I guess it was dead before. O, its wings were just as soft! and ’t was a yellow one. And I buried it up in the ground close to where I buried up my little birdie, side of the spring.
Your affectionate sister,
Georgianna.
Among the other letters I find the following, from Tom Cush. As the people at Summer Sweeting place had been told the circumstances of his running away, it was not only proper, but just, that William Henry should send them this letter.
A Letter from Tom Cush to Dorry.
Dear Friend,——
I have not seen you for a great while. I hope you are in good health. Does William Henry go to school there now? And does Benjie go, and little Bubby Short? I hope they are in good health. Do the Two Betseys keep shop there now? Is Gapper Skyblue alive now? I am in very good health. I go to sea now. That’s where I went when I went away from school. I suppose all the boys hate me, don’t they? But I don’t blame them any for hating me. I should think they would all of them hate me. For I didn’t act very well when I went to that school. Our captain knows about that school, for he is uncle to a boy that has begun to go. He’s sent a letter to him. I wish that boy would write a letter to him, because he might tell about the ones I know.
I’ve been making up my mind about telling you something. I’ve been thinking about it, and thinking about it. I don’t like to tell things very well. But I am going to tell this to you. It isn’t anything to tell. I mean it isn’t like news, or anything happening to anybody. But it is something about when I was sick. For I had a fit of sickness. I don’t mean afterwards, when I was so very sick, but at the first beginning of it.