Your letter rec'd. I enclose check for $10 as I have no bills by me. You
can get it cashed at Houghton, Mifflin Co., No. 4 Park St.--ask for Mr.
Wheeler. Or may be the treasurer of the college will cash it. We are all
well and beginning the spring work. Hiram and I are grafting grapes, and
the boys are tying up and hauling ashes. The weather is fine and a very
early spring is indicated. I have not seen a wild goose and only two
or three flocks of ducks. I should like to have been with you at the
Sportsman's Fair. If you make those water shoes or foot boats I should
advise you to follow copy--make them like those you saw.
Your sentence about the whispering of the ducks' wings, etc., was good.
Ruskin invented that phrase "the pathetic fallacy." You will probably
find it in your rhetoric. It was all right as applied to your sentence.
Susie is very quick witted.
The shad men are getting ready. I hope you will go and hear the lectures
of the Frenchman Domnic. He is worth listening to. I shall be very glad
when the Easter vacation brings you home once more, you are seldom out
of my thoughts. I made two gallons of maple syrup. Walt Dumont has an
auction this P. M. Nip and I are going.
Your loving father,