I didn’t know I was going to come away from school so soon after you
did, but there was a new High School begun in our town about a mile and
a half off, and my father thought I could learn there, and learn to farm
it some too. But I don’t think much of farming it. Course ’t is fun to
see things grow, after you’ve planted the seeds, and then watched ’em
all the way up. My grandmother says my father likes his corn so well,
that he pities it in a dry time, and when a gale blows it down he pities
it as much as if he’d been blown down himself. Weeds are enough to make
a feller mad, coming up fast as you kill ’em and sucking all the
goodness out of the ground that don’t belong to them. Suppose they think
’t is as much theirs as anybody’s.
I suppose you are studying away for college. I don’t know whether I wish
I could go or not. I guess my head wouldn’t hold all ’t would have to be
put into it before I went, and in all that four years too! Now I want to
know if a feller can remember all that? I mean remember the beginning
after all the other has been piled top of it? I don’t know what I shall
be yet. For there is something bad about everything, Grandmother says,
and I believe it. Now I don’t want to be a farmer, because ’t is hard
work and poor pay,--in these parts. I guess I should like to go to
Kansas. But there are the Indians after your scalp, and fever and ague,
and grasshoppers, and potato-bugs, and bean-bugs, and army-worms to eat
up everything, and droughts to dry up everything, and floods to wash it
away, and hurricanes to blow it down, and Uncle Jacob says if a man
comes through all these alive, with a few grains of corn, the man that
wants to buy ’em is a hundred miles off! But my father says, what is a
man good for that don’t dare to go to sail without ’t is on a mill-pond!
For smooth water can’t make a sailor. And if a man is scared of lions,
how will he get through the woods. So I don’t know yet what I shall be.
What should you, if you did n’ go to college? Go into a store? I tell
you, Dorry, that if I was a dry-goods clerk, fenced in behind a counter,
I do believe I should ache to jump over and _put_ for somewhere and go
to doing something. But my father says you can’t always tell a man by
what his business is. For you’ve got to allow for head work. And because
he sells shoe-strings, ’t is no sign he hasn’t got anything in his head
but shoe-strings; and because a man drives nails, ’t is no sign he
hasn’t got anything but nails in his head. “Now suppose,” says he, “that
a man sells dry goods all day, can’t he have some thoughts stowed away
in his brains that he got out of books, or got up himself? And when he’s
walking along home and back, and evenings, can’t he out with ’em and be
thinking ’em over?” I s’pose ’t isn’t time for me to have thoughts yet,
s’pose they’ll be dropping along in a year or two, “or three at the
most,” as Lord Lovell said. One thing I mean to have, and that is a good
house with all the fixings, and money to spend, and money to give away
if I want to. So whatever I get started on, I mean to pitch in and shove
up my sleeves, and go at it. Father says I must be thinking the matter
over, and not make my mind up right off. They say going to sea is a
dog’s life. I should like to go long enough to see what Spain looks
like, and China, and other places. Maybe I shall learn a trade. Now, for
instance, a carpenter’s. That don’t seem much of a trade. Mostly
pounding. But they say if you keep on, and are smart at it, why, you get
to taking houses, and then you are not a carpenter any longer, but a
“builder,” and money comes in.
I’m going to let her rest a spell. Though I’m so old I can’t help
looking ahead some sometimes, to see where I’m coming out.
Didn’t you feel homesick any when you were coming away from school? I
did,--“quite some,” as W. B. used to say. I went round to all the
places, and paddled in the pond, and lay down on the grass to take one
more drink out of the brook, and climbed up in the Elm, and ran up and
down our stairs much as half a dozen times, without stopping, for I
thought I never should again.
I whittled a great sliver off the base-ball field fence to fetch away;
didn’t we use to have good times there? Bubby Short gave me his
pocket-book, and I gave him mine. They had about equal, inside. I went
to bid Gapper good-by, day before I came off, and gave Rosy my little
penknife.
Then I went to bid the two Betseys good-by, and they wiped their eyes,
and seemed about as if they’d been my grandmothers, and said I _must_
come to eat supper with them that afternoon. So I went. Me all alone!
Had a funny kind of a time. We sat at that round, three-legged stand,
and I’ll tell you what we had. Bannock and butter, sausages, flapjacks,
and scalloped cakes. All set on in saucers, for there wasn’t much room.
They had about supper enough for forty. For they said they knew their
appetites were nothing to judge a hungry boy by, and I must eat a good
deal and not go by them, and kept handing things to me, and every once
in a while they’d say, “Now don’t be scared of it, there’s more in the
buttery?” George! Dorry, I wish you could have seen that punkin-pie they
had! ’T was kept in a chair, a little ways off. I don’t see what ’t was
baked in. The Other Betsey said that was just such a kind of a pie as
her mother used to make. I out with my ruler, and asked if I might
measure it. ’T was about two feet across, and about four inches thick.
She said she thought ’t was a good time to make one, when they were
going to have company. When I took my piece I had to hold my plate in my
hand, for there wasn’t room on the stand. They wished you’d been there,
and so did I, and so would you, if you’d seen that pie. They didn’t take
down their best dishes, that we had that other time, but called me one
of the family and used the poor ones. I had to look out about lifting up
the spoon-holder, because the bottom had been off, once, and mind which
sugar-bowl handle I took hold of, for one side it was glued on. But
everything held. I can’t bear tea, but they said ’t was very warming and
resting, and I’d better. I guess they put in about six spoonfuls of
sugar! They wanted to know all about you, and said you were a smart
fellow.
They wanted me to take some little thing out of the store, to remember
them by. So I looked and looked to find something that didn’t cost very
much, and at last I pitched upon a pocket-comb. The Other Betsey put on
her glasses and scratched a B. on it, and said it could stand for the
two of ’em. But I told her she better make two B.’s, for that would seem
more like the Two Betseys, and she did. Lame Betsey said one B. ought to
go lame, and the Other Betsey said she guessed they both would, for she
had poor eyesight, and her hand shook, and nothing but a darning-needle
to scratch with. If I do break the comb I shall keep the handle, for I
think the Two Betseys are tip-top. I wish they could come and see my
grandmother. Wouldn’t the three of ’em have a good time!
Send a feller a letter once in a while, can’t ye? Say, now, you Dorry,
don’t get too knowing to write to a feller?
Your friend,