Six pairs of Don Alfonso’s tweezers.
Seven hundred rank and file Macedonian horsemen drawn up in line of battle.
Eight cages of heliogabalus sparrow kites.
Nine sympathetical, epithetical, categorical propositions.
Ten tentapherical tubes.
Eleven flat bottom fly boats sailing between Madagascar and Mount Palermo.
Twelve European dancing masters, sent to teach the Egyptian mummies how to dance, against Hercules’ wedding day.
Abbie says it was easier to learn than the multiplication table. They wanted some of us to recite and Abbie Clark gave us Lowell’s poem, “John P. Robinson, he, says the world’ll go right if he only says Gee!” I gave another of Lowell’s poems, “The Courtin’.” Julia Phelps had her guitar with her by request and played and sang for us very sweetly. Fred Harrington went home with her and Theodore Barnum with me.
Sunday.—Frankie Richardson asked me to go with her to teach a class in the colored Sunday School on Chapel Street this afternoon. I asked Grandmother if I could go and she said she never noticed that I was particularly interested in the colored race and she said she thought I only wanted an excuse to get out for a walk Sunday afternoon. However, she said I could go just this once. When we got up as far as the Academy, Mr. Noah T. Clarke’s brother, who is one of the teachers, came out and Frank said he led the singing at the Sunday School and she said she would give me an introduction to him, so he walked up with us and home again. Grandmother said that when she saw him opening the gate for me, she understood my zeal in missionary work. “The dear little lady,” as we often call her, has always been noted for her keen discernment and wonderful sagacity and loses none of it as she advances in years. Some one asked Anna the other day if her Grandmother retained all her faculties and Anna said, “Yes, indeed, to an alarming degree.” Grandmother knows that we think she is a perfect angel even if she does seem rather strict sometimes. Whether we are 7 or 17 we are children to her just the same, and the Bible says, “Children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right.” We are glad that we never will seem old to her. I had the same company home from church in the evening. His home is in Naples.
Monday.—This morning the cook went to early mass and Anna told Grandmother she would bake the pancakes for breakfast if she would let her put on gloves. She would not let her, so Hannah baked the cakes. I was invited to Mary Paul’s to supper to-night and drank the first cup of tea I ever drank in my life. I had a very nice time and Johnnie Paul came home with me.