15. Doctors who give much medicine and cut people open.
16. The last three ought really to be damned.
17. People who have reached middle age and still say: “I taken,” “You hadn’t ought to,” “I seen him,” and “It is me.”
Given under the hand and seal, stamped and delivered by
TROTWOOD.
Old Wash’s Ma.
Editor Trotwood’s:
Your writings as they appeared in the Horse Review always appealed to me, especially the “Old Wash” stories, and I remember some years ago that some one was impertinent enough to ask the age of Old Wash. Of course, that fellow wasn’t entitled to an answer, but as I have run across a clipping of an old negro woman whom I am sure must be old Wash’s mother (I hope you can verify it), I want him to look her up. The fact that he felt young enough to marry (the unlucky thirteenth) it might interest him to be able to tell his troubles to his ma.
Your magazine is a welcome monthly visitor, and may it always come up to the standard you have planned for it is my earnest wish. Here is the story: