There is a foot-ball, and we play it. It is as big as a pumpkin, but you kick it. Then you get kicked and knocked down and your leg hurt; but you don’t cry. You never cry except when Jim’s asleep in the night, and your throat aches pretty bad.
There is twenty-four more days on the peace of paper.
Give my love to Tooty. How is the baby?—Your son, D. Hardin.
December 2, 1877.
Dear Mother: It is not a very big town. There is one store where you treat. It is Jerry’s. You walk right in. Jerry has molasses-candy and pop-corn and pea-nuts and string and oranges and canes and brooms and raisins and ginger-snaps and apples and fish-hooks and pise. Jim bought a pie once. It was wet, and you had to bite hard to bite it. He got it for the lock-jaw. A lock-jaw is a supper, but Mr. Wiseman don’t catch us. It is at night. We had a chicken, but I promised I would not tell where it came from. I will die before I will tell. All the boys will die before they will tell. It was the big boys, and they put a blanket up to the window and made a fire and roasted it. We had some salt and a jack-knife. John Simms roasted it. He’s a big boy. He knows how. He always roasts things. You just stick a sharp stick through it and roast it. It is good, but it makes your stummuck feel funny in the morning. There is a nother store, where the girls get things, and there is a place to get your shoes mended, and a depot, and a place for horse-shoes, and a church.
The box was very good. So good-by. D.
P. S.—Mr. Wiseman said you’d feel bad about these three demerits in my report, but you needn’t. Jim has got about ten demerits. All the boys gets demerits. One was a old bottle I threw in the hall, ’cause I didn’t want it on the table, and one was some water I threw out the window, and a boy was walking under. I had just washed me, and he got wet, and one was a noise. You make it with a tin tomato can and a string. I’ll fix one for you when I get home. The bottom has come out of my bank. And my trousers, the gray ones. How is the baby? Hardin.
P. S.—All the boys say Hardin.