RIVER, VERMONT, May 19, 1896.
DEAREST COUSIN JACK,--It is perfectly lovely up here, and I 've been inishiated into a Secret Society like your Dicky Club, and one of the by-laws is to help others all we can and wherever we can and as long as ever we can, and so I 've thought of that nice little spread you gave last year after the foot-ball game, and how nice the table looked and what good things you had, but I don't remember any strawberry jam or preserves, do you?
We 're hatching four hundred chickens to help others,--I mean we have set 40 sitting hens on 520 eggs, not all the 40 on the five hundred and twenty at once, you know; but, I mean, each one of the 40 hens are sitting on 13 eggs apiece, and March says we must expect to lose 120 eggs--I mean, chickens,--as the hens are very careless and sit sideways--I 've seen them myself--and so an extra egg is apt to get chilly, and the chickens can't stand any chilliness, March says. But Chi, that's my new friend, says some eggs have a double yolk, and maybe, there 'll be some twins to make up for the loss.
Anyway, we want 400 chickens to sell about Thanksgiving time, and, of course, we can't get any money till that time. So now I 've got back to your spread again and the preserves, and while we 're waiting for the chickens, we are going to make preserves--dee-licious ones! I mean we are going to pick them and Rose is going to preserve them. We 've decided to ask $1 and a quarter a quart for them; Rose--that's Rose Blossom--says it is dear, but if you could see my Rose-pose, as Chi calls her, you 'd think it cheap just to eat them if she made them. She 's perfectly lovely--prettier than any of the New York girls, and when she kneads bread and does up the dishes, she sings like a bird, something about love. I'll write it down for you, sometime. I 'm in love with her.
Please ask your college friends if they don't want some jam and wild strawberry preserves. If they do, March says they had better order soon, as I've written to New York to see about some other orders.
Yours devotedly,
HAZEL.
P.S. I 've sent you a sample of the strawberry preserve in a homeepahtic pellet bottle, to taste; Rose says it is n't fair to ask people to buy without their knowing what they buy. I saw that Miss Seaton just before I came away; she came to call on me and brought some flowers. She said I looked like you--which was an awful whopper because I had my head shaved, as you know; I asked her if she had heard from you, and she said she had. She is n't half as lovely as Rose-pose. H.C.
IX
THE PRIZE CHICKEN