IX.
KATE.
It would take too long to follow Maggie and Bessie through all their travels, or to visit all the places visited by them, going from one to another by easy stages, as best suited mamma; and staying a day or two, or a week or two, according to the amount of interest and pleasure they found in each. Charleston and Richmond, Virginia Springs, the famous Natural Bridge, and many another spot, were described in Maggie’s letters to her friends at home; but the place of which she most delighted to write, because there she found the most to describe, was Washington. Here is one of her letters from that city:—
“My beloved Uncle Horace,—I think Washington is the most interesting city I ever met with. It has so much to see and buildings which are quite surprising and such a credit to themselves and the people who built them that I am proud of the nation to which I belong. But the most interesting place I find is the Pattern Office where are to be seen thousands and thousands of things one can never be tired of looking at. There are jewels and beautiful birds and butterflies, and very nasty bugs and spiders and oh! Uncle Horace an awful spider so large with his legs out he is as big as a dinner plate, I am thankful I do not live in that country, for he bites too and the people die, and I don’t see the use of spiders but I suppose some, or God would not have made them. And there are machines but we children did not care much for those and Indian things very interesting and all kinds of curiosities and beautiful toys. But the most interesting of all General Washington’s furniture and his clothes. But his furniture was very shabby and I think his grateful country ought to make him a present of some better and his coat—why, Uncle Horace it was all ragged and if it was not the father of his country’s I would say it looked like an old beggar man’s. But please do not think I am a traitor because I say this, for I would not be such a thing I hope, nor a Benedict Arnold either, I shan’t call him Mr. for he is not good enough, and I think he was the meanest man that ever lived not to take his own punishment but to let poor Mr. Andre be killed for him. And Bessie and I do think the father of his country might have let Mr. Andre off that once if he would promise never to do so again and we are afraid he forgot that time that Jesus wanted us to forgive one another as He forgave us. Papa says he had to make an example of Mr. Andre but I think he would have been a better example himself if he had showed mercy. And in the Pattern Office are some stufed animals some very pretty and some ugly as is in the nature of animals to be, for we all know they did not make themselves any more than people who are some ugly and some very handsome and they can’t help it. And so I don’t see why they have animals for patterns for no man nor woman either could make an animal but only God, but they are interesting to see though it must be disagreeable to stuff them.
“We saw the President and we are very much disappointed for he looks just like another man, not a bit better, and we did not expect it of him but thought he would be very grand and somehow different. I don’t care a bit if I never see another President. I think it is real mean. But he has a very grand house and he lets people come in and see it which is very kind of him, for I would not like people I did not know to come in my house, and pass remarks about it; but Papa says Presidents and kings and things of that kind have to do a great many things they do not like very much, so I hope I will never be a President or his wife either and if he asks me to marry him I will certainly say no and Bessie will too.