Bracken, Sunday aft.
I saw young Jeffry Tucker in Richmond last week and what he had to tell me of my girl gratified me greatly. I am not going to divulge to you what he said, but you may know it was something pretty nice.
I miss you very much, my dear Page, but poor old Mammy Susan is worse off than I am because she is at home all the time and I am off on my rounds, and when I am at home, thank God, I have books. I do not mean to say that books take the place of my girl, but I mean I can bury myself in them and for the time being be oblivious to everything else.
Sally Winn is still trying to die, poor woman. I was called out in the wee small hours this morning to help her cross the Styx. She has been more determined than ever since Mrs. Purdy passed over. She is very jealous and said this morning: "Betty Purdy always was a pushing thing. She made out all the time she didn't want to go but that's not so, I know. She's been getting ahead of me all her life. Pretended she married Purdy because he was so bent on it that she had to. Everybody knows it was just the other way, she was so bent on it, Purdy had to." Of course you must have heard that Mr. Purdy courted Sally first. I suggested that it would be well if she tried to live and perhaps she might console the widower; and do you know, I left her with a much stronger pulse.
I hope your Thanksgiving will go off finely. I cannot tell you how we long for you, my dear; but Christmas will soon be here, and in the meantime I am going to bury myself in a new book I got in Richmond last week.
I am so glad for you to make these good friends you write of. The Twins sound delightful. Tucker is one of the best fellows I know. He is ridiculously young to be the father of girls as old as you. He is one of the cleverest newspaper men in the South, so clever I wonder the South keeps him. New York newspapers seem to suck in all the bright men sooner or later.
I am so glad your friends will come to Bracken for a visit with you during the holidays, and I will of course let you go to them for a visit. I may run up to the city at the same time. Cousin Park Garnett has made me promise to stay with her the first time I go to Richmond, so I am afraid the trip will not be altogether hilarious for me.
The dogs send love to their mistress in yaps, yowls and whines. Mammy says she hopes "you ain't done wash all de meat off'n you in dem plumbin' tubs."
With much love,
Father.
From Mr. Arthur Ponsonby Pore to Miss Annie de Vere Pore.