September 9th, 1877.
Dear Mother: I don’t feel very well. I want to come home. I am very sick. I could not eat any supper. My throat aches pretty bad. I think I had better come home. The boy that sleeps with me says most all boys feels so at first; but may be I shall die. I want to come home. I will study good at home. So good-by.—Your son,
P. S.—I want to come home. Dick.
October 26, 1877.
Dear Mother: Me and the boy that sleeps with me put a peace of paper on the door, and that made me feel better. I got the ten cents and your letter. I had to buy some pop-corn. All the boys buy pop-corn. A man has pop-corn to sell. Jim gave me some pop-corn that time my throat had a lump in it, and it felt better. It was red, and all sticky together. I think that was why.
It’s a buster of a house here, and it’s got a bell on top of it. A boy rings it. It comes right down in his closet. It comes through a little round hole, and he pulls it, and he let me pull it once, and that makes it ring. There’s lots of boys here, and some girls. There is doves living up where the bell is. I went up there. They kind of groan, and that is coon, when they coo. I like the doves, but I don’t like their coon. Every boy writes their names up there. Sometimes they cuts their names, but Mr. Wiseman says you mustn’t any more. Mr. Wiseman is the Principle, and he has got whiskers, and every boy has to mind him.
He points and he says, “Go to your rooms!” and we go. Some boy sent him a paper, and it made him hoppin’ mad. It was about a clock. It said:
“Half way up the stairs he stands,
And points and beckons with his hands.”