Des Moines, Iowa.
We moved to Iowa last December, and the best thing I have had since I have been here is your lovely paper, Harper's Young People. How we did laugh when we read about Miss Julia Nast's cooking party! When we lived in New Jersey I used to see her sometimes, and I sometimes saw her father and brother riding past our house, with those great English hounds running on behind the horses. The funniest picture I ever saw is the little De Lesseps children in the dog-cart with their father. I wish the baby had been in the cart too, with her mamma. I have been wanting to see Mollie Garfield, and, to my delight, there she was in last week's Young People. I feel so sorry for her and the rest of the family! My brothers and sister and I gave some money for the monument. When I become a grown-up lady, and the monument shall have been erected, I will go to see it.
I am now ten years old. I attend a school which the Western people call a college; in the East we would call it a seminary. I have two beautiful birds. The name of one is Cassius, and of the other Ida. I have three brothers and one sister. My big brother is in the East at college. My brother fourteen years old is getting ready for college here in Des Moines. My little brother Paul stays at home and learns his ABC's with mamma. My sister Blanche is seven years old, and can spell a little, but can not write. She is learning how to crochet.
Helen H.
Osage Mission, Kansas.
This is the first letter I have ever written to your dear little paper. I am seven years old. I go to school. I have so many nice books, and a little secretary to keep them in. I have a velocipede, a wagon, and a wheelbarrow, and many other things. My papa is postmaster. I hope you will find this good enough to print.
Ernest H.
You printed your letter so elegantly in those large capitals that we were delighted with it, and were very glad to send it to the press to be made into a dear little letter for Our Post-office Box.