Old Days at Beverly Farms

by Mary Larcom Dow

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LETTERS

Beverly Farms,
April 25, 1893.

My dear Miss Baker:

I get such pleasant letters from you that I quite love you, though I dare say I should not know you if I met you in my porridge dish being such a short sighted old party. And liking you, when you joined those other despots and lie awake o' nights, thinking how you can pile up more work and make life a burden to school ma'ams, means a good deal!!

Here is Miss Fanny Morse, now, whom I have always considered a Christian and a philanthropist, commissioning me to count and destroy belts of caterpillars' eggs for which the children are to have prizes!

The children indeed! The prizes are at the wrong end! Miss Wilkins and I come home nights—"meeching" along—our arms full of the twigs—from which the nasty worms are beginning to crawl!

And now come you, asking for a tree! Yes, yes, dear body, we will do our possible, only if you hear of my raiding somebody's barn yard for the necessary nourishment of said tree, or stealing a wheelbarrow or a pick and shovel, please think of me at my best.

Now as to Mr. Dow, I must write his part seriously, I suppose, as he is a grave old Scotchman.