“Washington, Feb. 24, 1863.
“Dear Julie:
“I guess that you are getting to be a great big girl by this time and I hope that you are trying to be a good girl too and that you are trying to correct all your bad habits. I am trying to do it and succeed very well.
“I will now tell you about my last skate; we all started at half past nine in the morning and went to a lake warramaug which is 5 miles from Mr. Gunn’s house I walked up there and put on my skates and off I went like a streak of blue greased lightning and the ice was as smooth as glass and a foot thick after I skated about four hours, something happened. did the ice break, No! did my skate break, No! My buckle, NO! the clouds broke and their contents were spilled upon the earth and you had better believe that I got off my skates and put for home with my legs in my boots. It was a snow storm. On going home I summed up how many miles I had been that day and found out that I had gone on my own legs no body else’s you understand, I had that day gone 20 miles. the next day I was sick. I soon got over it and was all right again.
“I remain your aff. Brother
“Willie.
“Give love to all write soon.”
Sometime during this same year he wrote in quite a different vein to his mother. He shows a spirit “strenuous” enough to suit the most aggressive, and as tender as strenuous. There are two or three points of school ethics which appear with much force in his account of the trouble:
“The other night a few of the boys (Henry and I included) were playing ‘blind man’s buff’ in the kitchen, and I was it and one of the boys got a hand full of pepper and doused it in Henry’s eyes. of course Henry cried some, but you couldn’t get him to tell Mr. Gunn and at last one of the boys Daniel B. Gunn told Mr. Gunn and he called him in there and sent all the other boys to bed. When I was just getting in bed, a knock came at my door and I opened it and there stood ‘Henry’ with a handkerchief up to his face a crying he kissed me good night and went in his room. Pretty soon after I went in his room and he was still crying and told him not to mind it but keep a wet handkerchief to it and it wouldn’t ache much, so he did so and he felt quite comfortable. I told Ralph (which was the boy that did it) if he ever did another thing of the kind to my brother, I would knock him down, and I think I ought to. If I had only seen Ralph do it I would have knocked him down on the spot and teach him to mind his own business.
“According to Mr. Gunn’s rules ‘Stick up for your Brother’ and I mean to do it.
“With love to all, I remain your aff. son.