July 12th.
_Dear Daddy-Long-Legs_,
How did your secretary come to know about Lock Willow? (That isn’t
a rhetorical question. I am awfully curious to know.) For listen to
this: Mr. Jervis Pendleton used to own this farm, but now he has
given it to Mrs. Semple who was his old nurse. Did you ever hear of
such a funny coincidence? She still calls him “Master Jervie” and
talks about what a sweet little boy he used to be. She has one of
his baby curls put away in a box, and it’s red--or at least
reddish!
Since she discovered that I know him, I have risen very much in her
opinion. Knowing a member of the Pendleton family is the best
introduction one can have at Lock Willow. And the cream of the whole
family is Master Jervie--I am pleased to say that Julia belongs to
an inferior branch.
The farm gets more and more entertaining. I rode on a hay wagon
yesterday. We have three big pigs and nine little piglets, and you
should see them eat. They _are_ pigs! We’ve oceans of little baby
chickens and ducks and turkeys and guinea fowls. You must be mad to
live in a city when you might live on a farm.
It is my daily business to hunt the eggs. I fell off a beam in the
barn loft yesterday, while I was trying to crawl over to a nest that
the black hen has stolen. And when I came in with a scratched knee,
Mrs. Semple bound it up with witch-hazel, murmuring all the time,
“Dear! Dear! It seems only yesterday that Master Jervie fell off
that very same beam and scratched this very same knee.”
The scenery around here is perfectly beautiful. There’s a valley
and a river and a lot of wooded hills, and way in the distance,
a tall blue mountain that simply melts in your mouth.
We churn twice a week; and we keep the cream in the spring house
which is made of stone with the brook running underneath. Some of
the farmers around here have a separator, but we don’t care for
these new-fashioned ideas. It may be a little harder to take care of
cream raised in pans, but it’s enough better to pay. We have six
calves; and I’ve chosen the names for all of them.